We took a long train crossing Germany from east to west to arrive at my aunt’s place near Utrecht, in the heart of the Netherlands.
Being half-Dutch, I have to emphasize here on the subtle difference between The Netherlands and Holland. The latter, commonly used to describe the whole country, in reality only represents the two provinces of North- and South-Holland, covering the more famous and more prosperous coastal regions of the Netherlands.
After two freezing weeks in Germany, temperatures were finally rising again and the sun showed its face. We had a few lazy days, spending time with family, playing board games and going for little walks.
The Dutch are not famous for their culinary skills and instead focus on pragmatism when it comes to cooking. Netherlands has always been at the forefront in the innovation for pre-cooked meals and already twenty years ago the vegetable section of a supermarket would be dominated by small-sized portioned pre-cut and pre-washed vegetables in plastic bags.
Nevertheless I always crave to go back the Netherlands – not for any particular dishes but for all the snacks and sweets abound. My all-time favorite snack indeed is not the German-Turkish Kebap, but the Dutch Kroket.
This sinful delicacy is basically just a ragout with breading, deep-fried. You can use nearly everything as filling, but most commonly they are made of beef or veal. Apart from the classic one, my second favorite is the Satekroket, which includes peanut satay sauce – yummy 🙂
Most will eat their kroket together with fries, I will more often get it in a soft-bun, perfect for eating on the go!
Dutch snack cultur doesnt end here. Other classics are bitterballen (round version of kroket), Frikandel (deep-fried sausage), broodje garnalen (bun with shrimps from the North Sea), Hollands Nieuwe (raw herring). Moving over to the sweet snacks you should not miss Pannekoeken (Dutch version of French crepe), Poffertjes (a smaller version on the go), bitterkoekjes (cookies with almand paste, best fresh from the bakery!) and Oliebollen (deep-fried dough with raisins, eat hot!).
As you can see we had a full food-agenda, but we managed to squeeze in a bit of sightseeing 😉
Utrecht is a very charming yet lively mid-sized city. It is very typical Dutch with an old city center, loads of bicycles, loads of students and several canals, flanked by restaurants and bars.
Houses are mostly in the traditional Dutch design, narrow and low-rise, so you can always get a view on the very elegant cathedral (Domtoren).
We visited a friend of Yang Ke in a close-by city, which also gave us the opportunity to get to know a place not commonly on the tourist agenda – Delft.
Delft is known for famous painter Johannes Vermeer and for blue pottery, inspired from Chinese techniques and designs. If you like Venice, then this is the place for you. Walking through the city it felt like every second street was next to a canal.
With 100’000 population Delft is not that small, but on our Sunday morning it felt completely deserted which only got slightly better in the afternoon with a few people heading to the cafes and restaurants. We ended up in a cafe at 4:30 only to be kicked out after 30 min as the cafe was closing up.
Maybe it was the dreadful drizzling weather which made everybody want to stay in their cozy homes
