Any Croatian food I should avoid (raw meats, brains?)

Grilled fish isn’t raw. It’s been cooked. On a grill.

If you can't get an English menu, consider using Google Translate/Lens and your phone. You can download it to use offline. Or download a Menu Translator app. Or ask your waiter to describe the ingredients of the dish.

Note - Germany is not Croatia. Familiarize yourself with the EU ban on sale of animal brain which has been in effect since the turn of this century. You can Google traditional/unusual foods in Croatia.

Be a little careful with the rakija being sold in recycled 2L coke bottles.

Croatian cuisine (especially for tourists) is pretty straight down the barrel stuff. There’s a good amount of meat-and-potatoes comfort food mixed with Mediterranean style pasta, fish, etc. From a tourist perspective, it will be quite familiar and westernized. You would have a hard time encountering anything exotic. Personally, I have found dining in the region to be rather underrated, with solid food and good, attentive service as the norm.

I have zero concerns over food safety. I would, unfortunately, advise against ordering smoked/cured meats you’ll often see listed as carpaccio, prosciutto, etc. These do not compare to their Mediterranean cousins. My experience has been this kind of stuff can be heavily smoked, overly fatty and thick.

FYI, beef brains are outlawed in Germany,, but pig brians are not. Most foods do not contain pig brians but some do and it's not clear that they have to put it on the label.

I have spent a total of 20 days in Croatia over 3 visits. I love food and go looking for the best in quality and experience. Nothing in Croatia has ever impressed me, or made me sick.

WAIT! I LIED. On one trip I chartered a boat and went fishing for the local equivelent of a Red Fish. Most I gave to the skipper but one monster I carried into town to a restaurant that was recommended to us. They cooked it and prepared a feast. It was stunningly excellent.

I did a tour of Croatia a few years ago and will admit, I did get a bit tired of the raw brains every night although they were succulent.
(Just kidding folks!) 🙂
Croatian food is very firmly in the European tourist mainstream. Mediterranean on the coast with seafood and pasta, while in Zagreb and inland it’s more Central European meat and potatoes. Decent pizza anywhere.
If you can handle a wild fungus dug up by dogs, Croatian truffles are amazing, especially in autumn when in season.

Apparently pohovani janjeći mozak is a special treat. Breaded and fried lamb brains. Crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside.

In 2011, I bought a bottle of rakija out of a trunk on a highway rest stop. I suppose it could have had a lot of methyl alcohol, but it was pretty good. I think it was a pear flavor.

Paul, some years ago near the end of COVID I traveled to Albania. My tour guide, for some unknown reason, brought me home to meet her parents. Nice folks. They pulled out the best rakija stored in an old plastic coke bottle. After that I dont remember much .....

It’s good stuff. On a Balkan tour a few years ago, our bus driver served us out some shots of his home brew at rest stops (but to his credit, he did not indulge while on duty and was a great driver). On a Romania tour we went to a wine tasting lunch in a village in Transylvania. There were these little pitchers on the table. Water? No, it was tuica, the plum brandy found throughout the Balkan under different names (such as slivovitz). After the meal, they were selling the wine of course, and one of us asked if they also sold the home brewed tuica. A bit surprised, but sure, they said, it’s 20 lei (about $4) for half a liter. Some of us bought some, which they dispensed in recycled plastic water bottles.