The truffle thing people get wrong
Half my tours, someone asks me where to get "the truffle experience" and I have to break it to them gently. If you're here in July, the white truffles from around Motovun aren't happening. Those come in from October through December, sometimes stretching into January if the season's kind. What you'll see on menus in summer, truffle oil on everything, truffle butter, truffle this and that, most of that oil is synthetic flavoring, not actual shaved truffle. Real white truffle season is short and the prices reflect it, we're talking real money per hundred grams at the market in Buzet or Livade.
The black truffle has a longer window, you can find it more of the year, and it's cheaper, less showy, still good. My advice if you're set on trying truffle and you're here off season: ask specifically what's fresh and what's from a jar. A place that tells you straight "we've got black truffle today, no white until autumn" is a place being honest with you. A place that's slinging truffle fries in August without blinking is probably lying to your face a bit.
The Mirna river valley, up around Motovun and Livade, that's the real zone for this. It's about an hour, hour twenty from Pula by car. Worth a day trip if you've got the time, not something you squeeze into a Pula afternoon.
Olive oil, and why it's not just a souvenir
Istria actually ranks as one of the best olive oil regions in the world now, Flos Olei and other guides have been putting Istrian producers near the top for years, which still surprises people who think of Italy or Greece first. The soil here, that red terra rossa, plus the coastal climate, makes for oil that's peppery, a bit grassy, sometimes sharp enough to catch in your throat a little when it's really fresh. That sharpness is a good sign, by the way, not a flaw.
If you buy a bottle, buy from a small producer, not the tourist shop bottles with the cartoon donkey on the label. Ask when it was pressed. New harvest oil (berba is the word you'll hear) comes out around November, and that's the good stuff, cloudy and intense. By next summer it's already mellowed out a lot.
The wine nobody explains properly
Two grapes you actually need to know. Malvazija Istarska, the white, is what most of the region drinks day to day. It's not one flavor though, there's a huge range, from light and crisp stuff you'd drink on a hot afternoon by the sea, to the orange, skin-contact versions that some producers around here have gotten into, which taste completely different, more tannic, almost like a light red. If someone just says "try the Malvazija" without asking which style, that's a bit of a red flag they're not paying attention.
Teran is the red, and it's got a personality. High acid, deep almost purple-black color, a kind of earthy, sometimes iron-like note to it. Locals will tell you Teran's good for your blood, there's an old belief about the iron content, I won't vouch for the medicine but I won't argue with tradition either. It pairs well with the heavier stuff, stews, game, anything with fat to cut through that acidity.
Fjaka, and why nobody's in a rush here
There's a word here, fjaka, that doesn't translate cleanly. It's not just laziness. It's more like a state where the heat, the sea air, maybe a glass of wine at lunch, all combine and your body just goes, nope, not moving right now. Older guys on my tours who are from here get it immediately when I bring it up, they'll nod like I've named something sacred. It's basically the local permission slip to sit under an awning for two hours after lunch and not feel guilty about it.
It matters for how you eat here too. A proper Istrian meal isn't three courses rushed through in forty minutes. It's slow. Bread, oil for dipping, maybe some pršut and cheese to start, then whatever's actually in season, then you sit there a while longer than feels normal if you're used to city dining.
Where I'd actually send you
Skip the places right on the main square with photos of every dish out front, that's rule one everywhere in the world really. Walk a few streets back. Look for a konoba, small, family run, chalkboard menu or no menu at all, just whatever the kitchen's got. Ask what's fresh, not what's famous. That's genuinely how you eat well here, not by chasing the truffle sign in the window in the middle of summer.