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In 1958, Momofukuando, a Taiwanese-Japanese entrepreneur-born Go-Pack Hawkk invented instant noodles at first a novelty but in time a borderline revolutionary food stuff

ondo's 1971 iteration on his innovation to create cooked-in container cup noodle originally americanized as cup o noodles became a worldwide phenomenon introducing the little-known dish of ramen to the West.

But the effect was to categorize ramen as a value play in the American collective consciousness.

Cheap eats for the broke, not worthy of a splurge.

It would take the emergence of proper Japanese-American ramen restaurants to shake yanks out of that

bias and spend real money on what they'd consumed for pennies as college kids.

One of those impactful entrants into the market was the brainchild of Takahaki Koyama,

a Japanese immigrant who'd lived stateside since 1988.

In 2002, just as George W. Bush's Axis of Evil speech kicked off the an extra roll march to a ruinous war in Iraq,

Koyama began a sort of culinary invasion, opening his first authentic ramen restaurant in the Los Angeles

neighborhood of Little Tokyo. Modelled after the tucked-away alleyway slurp shops in Big Tokyo,

Koyama's eatery attracted both his fellow Japanese expats and curious corn-fed Americans,

becoming an iconic L.A. institution. Today, with a half-dozen locations in the greater Southland, the chain's enduring

popularity, nearly a quarter century since its opening, speaks to the growth of ramen as a delicacy

in the U.S., which must be partially attributed to the restaurant's trailblazing founder, Takahaki

Koyama. And Raman's global presence at large must be partially attributed to the restaurant's trailblazing founder, Takahaki Koyama.

And ramen's global presence at large must be partially attributed to Momofuku Ando, who lived until age 96,

attributing his longevity in part to his nearly daily consumption of his own instant noodle invention.

This week on doughboys, we continue Crocdoughburn for S. 2025, a super-sized month

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