A ''Sumo"' Meal for Dinner.....

Our hotel, The Super Hotel in Shimbashi, was only a 5-minute walk to the Shimbashi Station, which was on the Yamanote Circle Line. And as always, the area around such a major train station would have many department stores, malls and restaurants.

As pakdokter had said earlier, this winter is definitely much colder than the Tokyo winter we had experienced in the past. The wind was icy cold. So we decided not to venture out far and picked a little ízakaya''- a local pub - for our dinner. Apart from the many different types of tapas size dishes, this joint also offerred the 'sumo' meal. This huge serving of what looked like the 'steam-boat 'at home is normally eaten by one sumo wrestler but the four of us struggled to try and finish it after several rounds of little plates of pub grub.

grated lobak putih with tiny ikan bilis....

cold fresh tofu....

chicken rolled around cheese and wrapped with a local vegetable leaf..

rolls of fish wrapped with seaweed and batter...

fish(satay) on skewer with some salmon roe

and mushroom with fish fillings on satay sticks..

grilled minced chicken meat...

the meal below is a standard sumo meal...

it is very much like the steamboat in Malaysia..

lots of vegetable and mushrooms...

with chunks of chicken meat and crabs

to give the soup a very sweet flavour...

the four of us struggled to tuck in this helping

which one sumo wrestler may not find it enough...

lots of vegetables and mushrooms

with glass noodles and udon...

the segment of bamboo was filled up with

minced chicken which was dropped into

the soup as chicken balls...