She lived in Japan for 35 years. Now she makes ramen in the Calif. woods.

"My goal is that if Japanese people come to my restaurant, I don't want them to say, 'This is not Japanese food, this is American food.' So I am always keeping the quality to have a similar taste to Japanese taste."

"The inspiration to open a restaurant was years in the making, born from Toshiko's longing for authentic Japanese food after leaving home in 2009. At 35, she settled in sunny San Diego, but found that her exacting idea of Japanese food was 'so difficult' to source that she opted 'to create,' building up a home repertoire of foods she missed from Sendai."

"As the only ramen spot in town, Gojira has become an unexpected cult favorite, blending Toshiko's son's obsession with Godzilla, the Japanese post-war-inspired monster, with their love of punk rock and the snow. Now, it's been six years of serving skiers and snowboarders who will wait over an hour, often in frigid temperatures, for a bowl of noodles."

Toshiko James and her fiancé BJ James opened Gojira, Mammoth Lakes' only ramen restaurant, after initially moving to the Eastern Sierra mountain town for snowboarding. Toshiko, originally from Sendai, Japan, had long sought authentic Japanese food after leaving home in 2009, eventually settling in San Diego where she worked at Sushi Ota. After meeting BJ at a farmers market in 2017, the couple decided to open a restaurant combining their shared passions for punk rock, the outdoors, and Toshiko's son's Godzilla obsession. Over six years, Gojira has become a cult favorite, with customers waiting over an hour in freezing temperatures for bowls of noodles. Toshiko maintains strict quality standards, ensuring her ramen tastes authentically Japanese rather than Americanized.

Read at SFGATE