The Foraging Angler: Nevada City and the Forks of the Yuba

Situations have changed rapidly in the restaurant and food scene since the onset of Covid-19 and a worst-of-the-worst fire season. A while back, I reported the close of the Ol’ Republic Roadhouse up Five Mile Grade out of Nevada City on Highway 20. The Wheelhouse has taken over at this location (close to Scotts Flat Reservoir, with its trout and excellent smallmouth fishing), hoping take-out, a simple menu of burgers, an extensive on-tap beer repertoire, a lone pulled-pork sandwich, and mountain bike rentals will keep them alive through the off-season.

The Wheelhouse is smack-dab in a popular Nevada County mountain-biking area, where riders can enjoy a number of nearby trails. Its location on Highway 20, though, means it’s also an appropriate stop for traveling fly fishers. Besides Scotts Flat Reservoir, further east up the road is the turnoff to the little town of Washington, with its infamous and historic Washington Hotel and the South Fork of the Yuba, and the Bowman Lake turnoff provides access to Fuller Lake, Rucker Lake, the hike-in lakes of the Grouse Ridge area, and, via rough road, a rear entrance to Meadow Lake, Webber Lake, Jackson Meadows and Milton Reservoirs, plus the Middle Fork of the Yuba and a variety of trout streams.

I use a basic cheeseburger as a good way to test a restaurant’s quality without spending a hundred dollars. My wife and I found the Wheelhouse’s burger and pulled pork to be quite good. I don’t give many plus-5 ratings and am more often than not disappointed when ordering America’s favorite food. I rated the Wheelhouse burger and fries a 7-1/2. Karen liked their chardonnay. I found a Firestone Walker 805 4.7 blonde ale in a frosty pilsner glass to be a perfect match for my burger. The place was a madhouse over the Labor Day Weekend. But despite the crowd, not only was the food excellent, dining on their extensive stone patio and adjacent lawn area made one feel safe because of the more-than-required social distancing and adherence to mask-wearing mandates by food workers and servers. Fortunately, there was no wildfire smoke that day. We didn’t mind the wait. It didn’t hurt that the music of Johnny Cash drifted through the towering cedars from a neighbor’s backyard.

One restaurant closes and another enterprising entrepreneur steps in to take a chance on their dream. Karen and I are always looking for intriguing menu items, fresh ingredients, and quality at any price point, from fine dining to a hamburger stand. Down the hill from the Wheelhouse, in Nevada City, The Ham Stand Salumeria and, next door, Hola! Tortilla fit this bill. These are especially useful stops for fly fishers, because Highway 49 runs north and east out of Nevada City and takes them to the North Fork of the Yuba River and also the Lakes Basin, both of which are among California’s hidden fishing and scenic gems. When it comes to dining, though, there are few options north of Nevada City. Whether you stock up on take-out or camping provisions, Nevada City or Grass Valley is where you need to do it.

The Ham Stand opened more than a year ago, and often there is a line in their small store. Food is take-out that can be eaten on courtyard tables next to an organic juice, smoothie, and “rice bowl” stand. This is Nevada City — people watching is great. I teach cooking classes and love to do paella if I have the fresh ingredients that make it special. Ham Stand makes an authentic Spanish chorizo that is as good as the light, airy product found in Spain or Argentina. Along with the best shrimp I can find, chicken or duck, saffron, and a flavorful reduction stock, the Ham Stand chorizo takes this classic Spanish dish to another level. Recently, rather than use Italian sausage, we combined their chorizo with sautéed onions and green peppers in a brioche hot dog bun. I use the chorizo in gumbo and jambalaya with wild duck breasts, if I can’t get top-quality andouille. By the way, paella, gumbo, and jambalaya all work well with Bomba paella rice and the ingredients can be varied almost infinitely. It is said there are as many paella recipes as cooks in Spain. This rice absorbs stock liquids and their flavors very well: one cup of rice to three-plus cups of stock. My mom was from backwater Louisiana and would have been proud to put it on her table.

The Ham Stand takes pigs in a blanket to another level, using Thuringer sausage, made on-site, with fresh pastry dough for the blanket. A half dozen travel well and warm easily, wrapped in foil over a morning campfire or for a minute unwrapped on low in an RV microwave. This breath-of-fresh-air storefront enterprise also has a barbecue wagon. A rotating daily special is two meats and two sides for $20, and they cater and will bring the wagon to your home. A recent offering featured slow-cooked brisket and pulled pork. We have engaged them for a special birthday, when and if the pandemic allows.

A back-up is their take-out catering. Chef and owner Jason Jillson butchers on-site using pasture-raised animals and can order a pig for your spit. Other cuts, some not usually found in supermarkets, are available, as well as ribs and tenderloin. Hola! Tortilla is a new enterprise next to The Ham Stand on Zion Street. It started with on-site-made, fresh, organic-ingredient tortillas and is expanding, with a Taco Tuesday, tamales, catering, and daily delivery to local markets. A roasted grasshopper taco on the menu gives you an idea of their vision and approach. Take advantage of the freshness and purity by taking a bundle of tortillas home or to camp and eat them the same day. I have odd breakfast tastes and have discovered that tamales are a quick and tasty breakfast food and travel well.

Both Hola! Tortilla and The Ham Stand are a bit pricey, but you are paying for unusual, top-quality, fresh, and often organic ingredients. We look at it as better than paying for drugs and doctor’s visits.

Less than a mile away from the Ham Stand and Hola! is Dedrick’s Cheese, formerly The Wheyward Girl, also worth a stop. Recently, I found three strengths of aged Spanish manchego — mild, medium, and strong. Nearby, too, is SPD, a quality supermarket with its own specialty butcher shop and well-stocked deli.

In fact, downtown Nevada City, with its pronounced historical Gold Rush-era ambiance, is a place where you might want to dawdle before heading out to fish. Acme Hospitality out of Santa Barbara has invested millions throughout the pandemic on returning Nevada City’s National Exchange Hotel to its former glory. They have a concurrent project in nearby Grass Valley, renovating the Holbrooke Hotel, with its Gold Rush–era bar, once frequented by one of its famous residents, Mark Twain. A visit for a day or two and then on to the lakes, rivers, and higher mountains for fishing and fine dining in camp or eating at the respective lodges at Packer and Sardine Lakes should be on your post-Covid fantasy list.

If you intend to travel north on Highway 49 out of Nevada City, you are heading into one of the remotest parts of rural California, the part that most of the world doesn’t know about because they think of us only as Hollywood, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the redwoods. Let’s hope they never catch on.

Just outside Nevada City is The Willo, a funky steakhouse closed indefinitely due to Covid-19. Petersen’s Corner, in the Golden Triangle, second in marijuana production only to the Emerald Triangle on the North Coast, is supposed to be closed, but who knows? I saw cars, pickup trucks, and U-Hauls on a September afternoon. It was time to harvest the buds.

Farther on, North San Juan looks like a bomb went off, because the few brick Gold Rush–era buildings left are crumbling. Toki is gone. The Ridge Cafe does offer a decent breakfast burrito for morning fishermen on their way to the river, and the Brass Rail can slide a shot across the bar as they do in Western movies. Be careful — recently, a patron was killed walking out into Highway 20 by a hit-run driver. A plastic-flower-and-teddy-bear memorial was recently growing in size. For 16 years, I have looked forward to seeing a red-and-white Cadillac hearse in North San Juan sporting a flame paint job on its front bumpers and hood. It reminds me of Janice Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and my time in graduate school during the Summer of Love. The hearse moves around a pasture from one pile of debris to another. Such is North San Juan.

The winding drive on Highway 49 out of North San Juan offers one of California’s most scenic routes, taking you east to Downieville. Downieville’s fortunes have dropped since five thousand miners and an unknown number of Chinese laborers challenged the Yuba’s steep hillsides and canyons. Its economy fluctuates with economic ups and downs, and now there’s the pandemic.

For a brief period, Will’s Forty-Nine Wines, on the corner of the town square, featured outstanding hand-picked foothill wines. It’s long gone, and restaurants have closed. Grizzled miners from another time sit on shaded sidewalk benches, sometimes for hours, staring into space. For a few, there is still gold in them thar hills. St. Charles Place, a saloon, is open at times. Grubstake was closed, and the market no longer makes wonderful sandwiches. As I said, you’d be better off provisioning for a fishing trip in Nevada City or Grass Valley.

The Two Rivers Cafe, with tables in front and a small outside deck in back overlooking the junction of the Downie River and the North Fork of the Yuba, seems to have the best hours and offers burgers, pasta, pizza, and sandwiches. Stick with the burger, which might rate a 6. The small town square does have clean public restrooms.

A quarter of a mile outside Downieville, on the left going in, is the Coyote Creek Kitchen. This was what I had hoped to stumble on and well worth an eerie drive up a smoke-filled canyon. The owner has cooked in fine-dining establishments and hamburger joints. He bought a run-down business just before Covid-19 hit and has managed to keep it going with outside seating. Word-ofmouth brings a few customers in. The inside looked neat through a window. I ordered a test cheeseburger and fries. I should have brought a beer to wash down the terrible wildfire smoke — the owner was still waiting for a liquor license.

His basic half-pound cheese burger knocked me off my feet. To me, a frufru burger with everything on it but the kitchen sink doesn’t cut it. This burger starts with a hand-formed custom-blend beef patty and a warm square ciabatta roll that comes every day or two from a bakery in Marysville. You know fresh when you see it. The loosely formed patty was perfectly cooked to a medium/ medium-rare and topped with a magical blend of provolone and mozzarella. As I like it, fresh greens, onions, and tomatoes rounded out perfection. One look said no condiments — I wanted the flavors of bun, beef, cheese, and lettuce and tomatoes. Skin-on fries were as fresh as they get . . . no heat lamp for 20 minutes. A guy from the nearby Sixteen-to-One gold mine in Allegheny had sat down about a dozen feet away and asked about the quality. Both of us were ecstatic over the burger. He had a second reason to be happy: gold hit over two thousand dollars an ounce that day. It might be a good place to bring wine glasses and a great cabernet or zinfandel an a next visit to go with the cheeseburger, which I gave a 9-plus.

Prowling the back roads and less traveled rural routes of California could be turned into a lifetime endeavor. In addition to fishing, history, interesting people, and spectacular scenery, there are culinary treasures to be found that are as rich in their own ways as the ore still beneath the surface. As this magazine’s publisher said in a recent editorial, support the places you love. The pandemic is going to take its toll, in more ways than one.