midweek gems #31: Cali Road Tripping

California Gold Rush country + Davis pho scene + Viet-French in NYC

Last week, Rory and I coincidentally crossed the finish lines on major projects. I submitted the manuscript for Cooking Thai, a book that I’ve been working on with chef Pim Techamuanvivit for about two years. It’s been quite a journey for two opinionated cooks and friends. Rory completed grading his politics classes and, as you can imagine, it’s been an extra lively semester!

We made a book that we’re super proud of! Cooking Thai will now go through the editing, design, and photography process. It’ll be published in 2026.

"What did you do to celebrate?” my mom said.

Rory and I took a long evening walk to blow off steam. It had been about 36 hours since we’d left the house! After tidying up our offices, we took off for a little road trip to California’s Gold Rush country in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Why there? Because it’s easier than Paris. Actually, we wanted to go somewhere we’d never been, that’s so unlike our normal life, that takes us to another time and helps us to de-stress. Also, we recently bought a new car and wanted to drive it somewhere other than Costco, located 10 minutes from home.

Some highlights from our easy and interesting getaway.

💎 Murphys + Big Trees State Park

Tiny Murphys, CA, is an adorable 1-mile long western town in the High Sierras. Park your car and stroll. Murphys was built for tourism and can get busy on the weekends. We arrived on Wednesday and left on Friday, ahead of the crowds.

There are lots of wineries plus some restaurants, pour houses, boutiques, and other extremely quaint businesses. Rooms at the centrally located Victoria Inn are small but they have a surprisingly healthful, breakfast. The staff encouraged us to “load up” with snacks for lunch, so we did! They also told us about a local market and health food store to pick up other goodies for our visit to nearby Big Trees State Park, where we hiked among giant sequoias.

Murphys charms over and over. Big Trees has some very big trees. Remember to look up to take it all in.

This is all in Calaveras County, the scene of Mark Twain’s story, “The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”. In mid-May, the town of Angels Camp hosts a Jumping Frog Jubilee. The area drips with western charm, peace, and quiet.

💎 Auburn and Empire Mine State Park

California’s High Sierras are called Gold Country, dotted with small towns that went through 1850s-era booms and busts. Driving from Murphys to Auburn in Placer County was kinda dreamy. There were few cars on the 2-lane highways, and the light reflecting off the golden grass makes you understand the notion of the “Golden State” in many ways.

Road tripping in California's Gold Country. Auburn is adorable.

We went to Auburn to visit an actual gold mine in nearby Grass Valley. (Auburn is cute but not as pricey as Grass Valley.) The Empire Mine State Historic Park is very well preserved for visitors to get a sense of place and the process.

In today’s dollars, about $8 billion dollars worth of gold was extracted from Empire Mine between the 1850 and 1956. That’s enough gold to fill a space measuring 7 cubic feet. So, you’re talking 5.8 million ounces (164 thousand kilos), or 52 gallons of gold over one-hundred years. Gold bullion produced at the mine was transported to San Francisco.

Miners sat on wood sled-like transport system and descended the mine shaft at 600 ft per minute. They'd drill and shovel ore into carts that where pulled by donkeys. There was mechanization but it was hard labor.

You can go partway down the mine shaft, talk to a blacksmith or another kind of docent, and get a sense of how people labored to extract gold from the underground ore (mercury and cyanide were involved!). Panning for gold, I realized, is for romantic hobbyists.

There’s also a fancy house on the premises because if you’re going to own the mine, you ought to at least summer there. The mine’s brochure tells the story better than I can.

I got the rice but most people go for the pies. Josephine's vareniki dumplings and moules frites (the mussels not the fries are in the photo).

In Auburn, we dined at Josephine’s, a French-ish restaurant that draws locals for special occasions so make a reservation. At Ikeda’s — a legacy Japanese-American pie store, deli, and fruit stand — I scored semi-brown koshihikari rice (the area is California’s rice growing region) plus Blenheim apricots; there’s a little section of pan-Asian ingredients in the back too. Ikeda’s was conveniently across the highway from where we stayed, the tidy, affordable, and retro Foothills Motel.

💎 Pho tips — Davis, CA

On Saturday, we drove back to Santa Cruz via Davis because I wanted to check out its farmer’s market, which is super fun and located downtown. Also downtown are three pho shops, all located on G street. It’s weird but it somehow works to attract enough business from the UC Davis community and locals.

I picked SitLo Saigon because it served only beef pho (specialization means they’re focused!). You order and pay near the front door and then are seated so it may seem like there’s a line but there really isn’t. Surprisingly, most diners and the staff spoke Mandarin, but the menu was in English and Vietnamese.

The fresh noodle upsell ($1.50) was worth it. Wonder about the name? Sit Lo Pho uses an unusual spelling of xích lô (Vietnamese for cyclo).

A popular pho order is a beef short rib — a Flintstones-ish bowl that arrives with two six-inch short ribs poking from it plus a pair of scissors for detaching the meat. After snipping off the beef, one man picked up the bone and gnawed on it (that’s Asian style eating!).

I went for the Hanoi-style stir-fried beef pho and Rory got the brisket pho, which turned out to really be short rib meat cut in very thick pieces. Given the restaurant’s advertising a 72-hour broth, the soup was not very nuanced; it was mildly sweet and the spice notes were muted.

Each portion is humongous, likely because the prices are between $16 and 20 per bowl. The pho arrives with a small amount of Thai basil and bean sprouts, and a plate of marinated raw onion, which was sliced too thick for my taste. The chili and garlic vinegar was kind of Thai-ish. If we were to return, one order of pho plus a side of extra noodles would be enough for us.

💎 Vietnamese-French in NYC

Speaking of Vietnamese-owned restaurants, one came in at number 5 on the New York Time’s new list for NYC. Ha’s Snack Bar is owned by chef Anthony Ha and his baker and wife, Sadie Mae Burns. My NYC buddies say it’s good. The food is French-ish with a “through-line of fish sauce” says this Grub Street review. There are Viet herbs, like ngo om and diep ca (more on those herbs in my mega Vietnamese herb primer).

Reviewing Ha’s for NYT, Priya Krishna explains more about the Vietnamese-French restaurant that she granted two stars to and described as New York’s “most exciting new restaurant”. (Read the NYT review via this gift link.)

💎 What have you been cooking or eating?

I baked a lofty loaf in a cloche that I thought I’d given to Goodwill, but it was in our garage. My parents got it at a yard sale decades ago. I never used it until now.

My bread + Katherine's Maggi chicken and veggies would have made a good meal!

Katherine took the PTFS Maggi Chicken recipe for a spin and sent me the tasty looking results, which she paired with asparagus and carrots. Even when the chicken was marinating, her husband remarked how good it smelled! That’s validation.

For this coming paid subscriber Sunday Special, I plan to share a recipe for summery rice noodles. Join us, if you have not.