Marketing Japan: Dobro, Best Mediterranean Food in Tokyo?

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

Last night I went to Kyobashi on the Ginza Line to eat dinner with friends at a wonderful Croatian food restaurant called Dobro. It was a delicious dinner and a really wonderful experience.

Dobro means "Good" in Croatian and that's not just what it was; it was fantastic. Upon entering Dobro, one immediately gets the feeling that they are not in Tokyo but have gone to another country. The atmosphere inside of the restaurant is completely different. It is just like you've been miraculously transported to Zagreb or Dubrovnik.

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Inside of Dobro. Beautiful aesthetics and atmosphere.

Passing the lively and spotlessly clean kitchen on the right, one is presented with a beautiful mural painting that represents Croatia in her simplicity and beauty.

We started off our dinner with some fine Croatia wine Grasevina. It was quite excellent really.

We enjoyed the set menu called, the Dobro Course that sold for ¥5,500 (about $50 per person). It was heavenly. The course included the delicious house bread and raw ham; a plate of various vegetable based appetizers. Another fabulous item called (in Japanese) "Shutukuri" which was sort of like a cheese filled ravioli.

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Many taste treats from Croatia. Sarma in the middle.

The main dish was a rolled cabbage called Sarma which is the most popular dish at Dobro and I could see why. I am not a big fan of rolled cabbage but this was completely different than any rolled cabbage I have ever had before! This Sarma rolled cabbage that soaked and simmered for at least three hours in perfectly seasoned broth was absolutely gorgeous. I have never tasted anything like it before. Now I understand why it is the most popular dish of the many repeat customers of Dobro.

If you are looking for something very different in Tokyo that is fine and very romantic, I strongly suggest taking a trip to Dobro, Tokyo's only Croatian Restaurant.

And, after that, if you are interested in more things Croatian, visit the Croatia Government Tourist Bureau's Japan site here. 


Croatia! It is the Mediterranean the way it used to be.

Dobro Restaurant Site: http://www.dobro.co.jp/restaurant.html

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Keywords: Dobro, Croatia, Croatia.jp, the Mediterranean the way it used to be, Mediterranean

Croatia Tourism Launches New Internet Funnel Site for Japan

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

Croatia is the Mediterranean the way it used to be. And it sure is!

The Croatian Tourism Bureau in Japan gets my award for being one of the first to capitalize on using  a .jp domain for the purposes of upping their Internet traffic and creating an "Internet funnel" to solve problems involved with using a .com domain with a .jp sub folder in Japan.

Dubrovnik

On Friday night, the Croatian Tourism Bureau launched www.croatia.jp and it looks fantastic! Croatia is definitely fast becoming the next place I want to visit on vacation. Check out the site, it is massive and has tons of beautiful photographs of just how beautiful Croatia is.

Croatia is on the Adriatic Sea and was, long ago, part of the Roman Empire so there's lots of architecture left over from those days... And, since Croatia was part of Eastern Europe for so long and has only opened up to the west for the last twenty years or so, the scenery, landscape and architecture are still pristine.

Imagine what Italy must have looked like 100 years ago... That's what Croatia looks like today. This is where I'm taking my children on vacation next time.

The Croatian Tourism Bureau took our advice and created the Internet funnel. Smart move. As explained in a former post at this very blog, in a search, Google.jp and Yahoo.jp must compete for numbers of results but they must also compete for quality of results on a search. That is why a .com/jp URL is not efficient at all.

This is Japan. Both Google and Yahoo must give priority on a search to local businesses in order to survive. That's not just because of what they want to do, that's smart business.

As I wrote on the very same blog concerning this very same subject:

There are other problems with a .com domain. For example, consider this; Japanese kanji are two bits. The English alphabet is one bit. So, a search engine that is designed for the west - say, mikerogers.com/japan - even with Japanese kanji inserted in the SEO - will often return "noise" if a Japanese person searches for, say, "travel in Europe" when they write down the search in Japanese kanji... I'll try it for you here： 海外旅行... A computer not configured for Japanese will return this as junk. It might look like Hieroglyphics.

The answer is to create an "Internet Funnel" using a .jp link to lay next to, or on top of, the current .com domain and act as a net or a funnel to bring in the Japanese traffic. The funnel is completely set-up in Japanese with Japanese SEO and key words. It is for Japan only. It's a simple concept that works every time.

So, for example, my USA company URL in Japan may be: www.myUSAcompany.com/japan. This puts my company URL in a sub folder so google.jp searches will not prioritize searches for me.... This hurts my business.

But! If I create a www.myUSAcompany.jp as a funnel, it captures all Japanese traffic for me first, then directs to my .com. This increases my rating; and I don't have to touch my basic .com site at all... The www.myUSAcompany.jp funnels all local traffic to my main domain and then a click of a button delivers my traffic to the home base. Simple and deadly efficient.

So hat's off to Croatia Tourism for their new .jp domain. I will keep you posted on the results as they come in. In the meantime, go check out the site. It is user friendly (of course, we helped them design it) and it solves the problem of HQ getting upset because it doesn't touch their page at all.... Like I said, it is a funnel. It catches and directs folks in Japan quickly and more efficiently to the main page!

After all, that's what an Internet funnel is for! Everyone's happy!

This is not heaven or Hawaii... It's Croatia!

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