In all honesty, I'm not 100% convinced that canon Yoshizumi has it in him to win a duel with Mochimune -- we simply don't know enough about him, and a devil's advocate could make a strong argument for a weak Yoshizumi -- but Comeback!Yoshizumi, and my personal fanon Yoshizumi? Absolutely.

I'm tickled that you can picture the waiter. He was indeed looking down his nose at the riffraff, and that was a fun moment to write. :-)

I have to confess that I heard about snapelike's anniversary from reading the LJ responses to Part 16, so you're kind of responsible for triggering it (beyond being kind enough to be okay with me occasionally playing in a corner of your sandbox). I'm so very glad that it made you smile as well. :-D

I honestly can't remember if I've had sesame rolls before -- they look familiar, and I've eaten (and made) plenty of strange Asian desserts, including assorted gelatinous ones, but I don't have any solid memory of consuming them. I imagine they could be really tasty or ghastly depending on the proportions of sesame to sugar -- or just too weird altogether. (I tried some fruit mochi a couple weeks ago and couldn't finish the box -- they were technically fine, and actually kind of pretty, but my taste buds could not get past the fact that they weren't red bean or sesame.)