Steamboat cooking is the kind of tropical hybrid which could never have been dreamed up in this country. And yet it seems so obvious, combining a nabe stewpot with a teppanyaki grill in a single nifty, highly convivial unit. On its home turf, the Malay Peninsula, steamboat food must be spicy, filling and cheap. Kolaiya fits the bill on all counts. Its pedigree is right, too: this is the latest offering from the estimable Shin-Sekai group, which is rapidly cornering the market in feeding Shinjuku's Singapore/Malaysian community.

You may be relieved to know that Kolaiya is brighter and definitely more salubrious than its sister restaurant across the alley. What hasn't changed is the philosophy on pricing: Y1500 per person for an all-you-can-eat dinner (a mere Y980 at lunchtime). Okay, we're not talking premium-grade ingredients here--the seafood arrives straight from the freezer, the beef is definitely not Kobe's finest--but think of it as an "ethnic" version of chanko nabe and it looks like one of the best deals in Tokyo.

There is no menu, and thus no language problems. The only decision to convey to the cheerful Malaysian waitresses is your choice of cooking broth for your pot: chicken stock, tom-yum style sour soup, or (best of the lot) coconut-milk curry. As the liquid heats up, you load up at the counter from the raw ingredients on display: various cuts of chicken, pork and beef; slices of excellent spicy Chinese sausage; seafood, including crab, shellfish and shrimp (these are best for grilling, so tend to disappear fast); mounds of tofu, mushrooms and vegetables; and an authentic array of luk-chin meat- and fish-balls (the shrimp/mushroom balls are recommended). Help yourself to the dipping sauces of soy or spicy nam pla, and take a pat of "butter" to lubricate the grill.

For the next two hours (there's a Y500 surcharge after this), slowly feed the steamboat and keep the grill sizzling, replenishing your plate at your leisure, and washing it all down with draft Heineken (Y600). And if the grim reality of the Okubo backstreets proves too much of a culture shock when you leave, stop off at the Nikko minimart downstairs (probably Tokyo's best-stocked suppliers of Southeast Asian groceries) to pick up a dessert of fresh durian, or a whole coconut to tap for its juice.

Bar Pomato

2-3-11 Ebisu Nishi, Shibuya-ku

Tel: 3476-2089

Open: 6pm-12:30am (11pm last order); closed Sun. & hol.

Average check for two: Y15,000

There has to be a cogent reason why a place this good remains so little known. It could be the location, far enough from the main Ebisu drag that you'd be unlikely to stumble upon it by chance. More likely it's the unfortunate name: it sounds lightweight, even flaky. And Pomato isn't even a bar, it's a gem of a restaurant that produces some of the best Italian home cooking in town.

Owner/chef Yoshiaki Kakehata has fashioned Bar Pomato in his own likeness: personable, unostentatious and quite untouched by the hype and flittering interests of the Hanako generation. It's a classic one-man show: not only does he cook, he's likely to take your order and serve it, too. He holds sway not only in the cozy 12-seat dining room (jars of pickles and brandy-marinated fruit on the windowsill; jazz on the stereo) but out onto the street, to his herb garden and the charcoal grill with which he tantalizes the neighbors during the summer months.

Kakehata's Y5000 dinner is his showpiece, and it's always terrific value. The antipasti are inventive and plentiful; no mixed-plate of nouvelle doodlings here. On a recent visit we were served no less than six separate dishes, all true to Tuscany in spirit if sometimes closer to Tokyo in detail. The raw scallops and fietti di pesco crudo may show a homegrown sashimi influence, but their dressings are entirely Mediterranean.

The pasta dishes more than hold their own, especially the home-made fettucine, but it is in the main courses that Kakehata's flair comes into its own. The house specialty is the grill: rabbit, lamb or veal, all packed with herbs plucked fresh from outside the doorway. Enquire what fowl is in season: it may be quail in grape leaves or pigeon with sage and raspberry leaf; if you're in luck, it will be his pheasant wrapped in oregano and fennel, stuffed with bacon, vegetables and rosemary and served with a sauce of funghi porcini. Equal care is taken with the fish dishes, especially the grilled bream, and in the winter months Kakehata puts together a seafood cacciucco to match the best bouillabaisse.

Don't be put off by the brevity of the wine list: it is well chosen and priced. But if you don't like what you see, ask for the "Riserva Speciali," the second list of finer bottles (predominantly Piedmont reds) in the Y5000 to Y9000 range. Reservations are recommended.

Musashino Sobadokoro

5-55-11 Nakano, Nakano-ku

Tel: 3389-4751

Open 6-11pm; hol., 6-10pm; closed Sun.

Average check for two: Y8000

Most soba shops take down their noren just as many of us are getting ready for dinner. Musashino Sobadokoro ignores this hidebound tradition by pretending to be an izakaya which just happens to serve noodles. At heart, however, it remains a committed sobaya, rolling and chopping its own, but one which caters to the late crowd.

With its clutter of farm paraphernalia and gnarled wooden tables cobbled together from ancient cart wheels, Musashino is as rustic as you can get without hopping a train up to Matsumoto. You'll find the inevitable slurp-and-run gang here, on their way home from evening drinking sessions, but it's just as acceptable to settle in around the charcoal irori and explore the jizake list. Start with a flask of the viscous, yellowish Ten-nen Shibori, brought down from Aizu Wakamatsu or the milky-white nigorizake from Fushimi, both excellent winter drinking. Or follow the call of the wild, and order up some hot soba shochu (yu-wari ): a coarse taste, maybe--at least for the first cup--but entirely apt for these surroundings.

The food has all the finesse of a thatched Nagano farmhouse. There are bubbling stews of hearty root vegetables and tofu (kenchin nabe), earthy burdock kinpira, and robust piles of tempura. When spring arrives, there will be mountain herbs: crunchy sticks of yama-udo, reminiscent of celery, served with a generous dip of savory Shinshu miso; tazeri, a wild green vegetable not unlike watercress; and fuki-miso, a pâté of coltsfoot buds which captures like no other food the bitter taste of harsh life in the snow country. Few of the above will set you back much more than Y700.

Finally there is the soba, dark and wholesome in true inaka style. From the kitchen you will hear the muffled thud of cleavers as the noodles are cut and cooked to order. Try the house specialty, the eponymous Musashino soba, served chilled on a woven rattan basket with a selection of seven different spices--including shiso buds, chrysanthemum petals and spicy daikon momiji oroshi--to season your dipping sauce. They also have a rousing, stick-to-your-ribs noodle casserole (ask for the nikomi soba), guaranteed to keep the cold at bay as you retrace your steps to the Chuo Line.

TIDBITS

Holiday Booze
At last, premium beers at prices that reflect exchange rates: Shinanoya, in the heart of Kabukicho, may only stock a modest range, but who can argue with a Chimay Red for under Y300, or a Y700 St. Sebastiaan Grand Cru? 1-12-9, Kabukicho, Shinjuku-ku (3204-2365). Also, our favorite discount wine mart, the dependable Yamaya, has a new branch at 3-2-7 Nishi Shinjuku (3342-0601).

Eat the World
The faux-Moroccan decor at Spice Road brings together a tongue-tingling selection of "ethnic" cuisines from some reliable restaurant names: Maharaja (Indian); Sindbad (Middle-Eastern); Jenbatan Merah (Balinese); Rose de Sahara (Maghreb); and Tanto Domani (Italian), all rubbing shoulders under a single "tent." Spice Road, Shinjuku I-land Tower, B1, 6-5-1 Nishi Shinjuku (5323-4211).