Yaya's Bowl Ramen & Dumpling Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Castle Hayne

You order and pay at the cashier, but the staff sat us and gave me a menu to let me circle which food items I wanted to order. They were planning to come back to the table to get my order, but I just went to the cashier since they were busy. There are two separate indoor seating rooms, no outdoor seating. One of the indoor rooms has 2 family Chinese style seating tables. I was impressed with the variety of menu items. Nice that they had both customizable Japanese and Chinese noodle soups. We ordered beef mantou, sesame balls, takoyaki balls, fried homemade pork and cabbage dumplings, steamed homemade vegetable dumplings, and 2 ramens with fresh noodles (one with tonkotsu, one with shoyu base, both with chashu pork). We also had a bottle of Japanese lychee carbonated drink and complementary Chinese potato salad. It took about 15-25 minutes for all of the food to be done, with the ramen taking the longest.

We overall enjoyed all of the food. Even though the Japanese Ramen wasn't super authentic, at least they got the marinated egg and chashu pork done right. I still enjoyed slurping the noodles from the soup.

The mantou was not the mantou bun I was thinking of, it was actually the open steamed buns with meat and hoisin sauce. Still good though.

Sesame balls are generally my favorite-they were fried crispy and the filling was done right. What was different was they were on the smaller side and were sprinkled with sugar. I gobbled them right up.

Takoyaki balls were great, presented so pretty.

Homemade dumplings were wonderful.

Potato salad was delicious, not very spicy. My toddler tolerated it.

High chairs available, no booster seats.

Staff were very nice, nicer than any Chinese restaurant I've ever been to. So nice to have a Chinese restaurant like...

I had lunch here today. At the counter, you check off what you'd like to have on a laminated menu, but the woman behind the register just took my order since I dined in. I ordered the Japanese Ramen with tonkotsu base sauce, fresh noodles, chashu pork and an extra egg.

The broth was light but didn't have a creamy texture, and the noodles were almost overcooked, rather than having a chewy texture. The Ramen egg was very salty. It didn't have much of a sweet flavor, so it seems there was not enough sweet mirin in the marinade for the eggs. The chashu pork was sliced pretty thin but flavorful. It was a good soup (not the best Ramen I've had) but the salty eggs sort of ruined the dish.

The place is nice with lots of tables but not crowded. There's a second room too.

I will come back to try some other items on the menu such as the pan fried dumplings, their rice bowls, and...

The handmade dumplings are among the best I have tasted worldwide. I had the Japanese ramen bowl with the pork broth. I am sensitive to salty broths. This was well balanced and great depth of flavor. Surprisingly I preferred the fresh noodles to the egg noodles. The basics that come with are a bit skimpy so I add more woodear mushrooms and egg. (Though they describe the egg as soft boiled, it is not. Fairly salty, not my taste.) The decor suits a place like this. My biggest suggestion to the owners is that when a customer says it is their first time, offer an overview of the menus and see if there are questions.) I...