Japan's Yah Yah Ya Ramen opens second Metro Vancouver location on Robson Street

Ramen joints continue to open up throughout the city. Thankfully, not all of them are opening up at the ramen cluster around Robson and Denman streets.

For example, the newly opened Kokoro Ramen staked out new territory in East Vancouver at 5695 Victoria Drive.

Meanwhile, you can finally say "yay" (or "yah", if you prefer) as Japan's Yah Yah Ya Ramen has also opened the doors to its second location in the Lower Mainland.

The company opened first location is in Richmond at 1423–8388 Capstan Way in 2014.

The new downtown location takes over the space at 570 Robson Street, formerly the location of Junsei River and beneath Korean supermarket H-Mart.

A good indicator of the quality of a ramen joint is if a large portion of the clientele is Japanese. Such is already the case with this one, which is already drawing crowds. 

Presumably, that's because Yah Yah Ya specializes in Yokohama iekei ramen. (A literal translation of the kanji for the restaurant's name means "house-style".)

Pork and soy sauce is boiled for 12 hours along with chicken bone, konbu, and vegetables for the broth base, and flavoured with green onions and garlic.

Ramen options include shoyu, shio, miso, spicy miso, black tonkatsu, abura soba (noodles without broth), and mazesoba (ranging from $9.95 to $13.25). Additional toppings, such as spinach and seaweed are also available.

Combo sets include add-ons, such as onigiri, chashu don, spicy chashu don, mentaiko don, and salmon don.

The downtown location is across the street from where a new location of Jinya Ramen (street level at the Telus Building) is set to open. It's also a few blocks away from Ramen Gojiro, which continues to draw lineups.

The company also has three locations in Tokyo and one in Sapporo, Japan.