The Bitterballen Pilgrimage

Bitterballen are the Netherlands' answer to the question "what goes with beer?" - and the answer is a deep-fried ball of thick, savoury beef ragout, coated in breadcrumbs and fried until the outside shatters and the inside is molten. They're served in a bowl with a pot of sharp Dutch mustard, and the first rule is: never bite straight in, because the filling is roughly the temperature of the sun. You blow on it, you dip it, you wait - and then the crunch gives way to a rich, beefy, faintly nutmeg-spiced filling that's basically a croquette rolled into a sphere. Every bar, every pub, every terrace in the Netherlands serves them.

Rotterdam is the city to eat them in because Rotterdam is nothing like the Netherlands you expect. Bombed flat in 1940, rebuilt from scratch, it's a city of cube houses, market halls shaped like horseshoes, the Erasmus Bridge arching over the Maas, and a creative, multicultural energy that Amsterdam's tourist crush has long since lost. Bitterballen on a Rotterdam terrace, a cold Heineken or a local craft beer, the Cube Houses over your shoulder - it's the Dutch experience with the volume turned up. An hour from London. Cheaper than Amsterdam. Better architecture. Same bitterballen.