Most of Soonta’s public-facing material leads with cold rolls and salad bowls. That makes sense in December. But from March through August, when Adelaide mornings sit in single digits and Melbourne lunch breaks are grey and drizzly, the menu reads differently. The rice bowl gets ordered more. The spring rolls go first. The sweet potato chips come out of the fryer and disappear before anyone circles back.
This guide is about what the Soonta menu looks like when you’re ordering into a cold day — which items are genuinely warm, which ones hold heat through a lunch break, and why the bowl that gets the least attention is often the most satisfying call from May to August.
The cold/warm divide on Soonta’s menu
It helps to understand what Soonta’s menu actually consists of before getting specific.
Some items are cold by design. The Salad Bowl is a fresh Vietnamese salad — crisp, dressed, served cold. The Cold Rolls are rice paper rolls filled with fresh ingredients, served cold. And the Bun Bowl — Soonta’s noodle bowl — is built on a base of chilled vermicelli rice noodles. All of these are excellent. All of them are cold.
Then there are the warm items: the Rice Bowl comes on a bed of steamed rice; Spring Rolls are fried; Sweet Potato Chips come out of the fryer. The Banh Mi sits somewhere in between — the bread and fillings are assembled fresh, and the temperature depends on the protein.
Neither category is better than the other. But the cold menu tends to get the most visibility in Soonta’s brand presentation, which means the warm side of the menu gets discovered later — often in the middle of a cold week in June.
Why Vietnamese food works when it’s cold
One of the assumptions people carry about Vietnamese cuisine is that it’s primarily a warm-weather food: light, fresh, cold. That’s partly true for the salad and noodle categories. But the broader tradition runs much warmer. Vietnamese home kitchens have always cooked for cooler months — slow-braised pork, grilled proteins served on steamed rice, fried starters eaten hot from the wok, soups with deep fragrant broths built over hours.
The fast-casual version of that tradition exists at Soonta. The warm items aren’t an afterthought or a concession to people who don’t like salad. They’re a direct part of the Vietnamese food tradition that the chain is drawing from. The rice bowl, specifically, is the lunch that Vietnamese families ate before the phrase “grain bowl” became a menu trend.
The other factor is balance. Vietnamese cuisine is built around contrast: warm and cool elements together, fresh herbs against cooked protein, pickled vegetables alongside steamed rice. Even Soonta’s warmest dish — the rice bowl — comes with fresh herbs and pickled vegetables sitting alongside the warm protein and rice. It doesn’t feel like a stew or a hot canteen dish. It’s warm without being heavy.
The Rice Bowl — the warm centrepiece
The Rice Bowl is Soonta’s most warming menu item. Steamed rice forms the base; on top go Asian greens, eggs, house-pickled vegetables, fresh herbs, and Vietnamese dressing. The protein sits over everything.
The bowl is warm throughout — the rice holds heat, the greens have some wilt from the warmth underneath, and the dressing ties everything together without making the dish feel like a heavy baked meal. It’s filling without being the kind of thing you need a nap after.
The protein range
This is where the rice bowl surprises people who haven’t looked closely at the menu. The current options include:
- Roast Pork — probably the most satisfying choice in cold weather; the fat renders into the rice in a way that leaner proteins don’t
- BBQ Pork — deeply flavoured, works well against the Vietnamese dressing and pickled vegetables
- Karaage Chicken — Japanese-style fried chicken, crispy, holds heat well
- Katsu Chicken — crumbed and fried; good texture contrast with the rice
- Grilled Chicken — leaner, cleaner finish
- Soy Ginger Chicken — the ginger note works particularly well in cold weather
- Lemongrass Chicken — fragrant; the herb profile carries through the dressing
- Tofu and Mushroom — for vegan and vegetarian orders; the mushroom adds depth and umami that lighter proteins don’t provide
- Chicken Spring Rolls or Vegetarian Spring Rolls — placed on top of the rice; a warm and crunchy variation that works as a different texture experience
A few of these proteins — Roast Pork and BBQ Pork specifically — are more centred in the rice bowl than elsewhere on the menu. They’re worth knowing about if you’ve only previously ordered chicken-based options.
Why the rice bowl is the winter call
Part of it is temperature — a warm base holds heat through a cold lunch break in a way that chilled noodles or a salad bowl don’t. But the more important thing is satiety. The rice bowl is denser and more filling than the noodle-based options. When Adelaide is in the middle of July and the temperature barely clears ten degrees, the cold roll and salad are still excellent — but they’re not the instinctive lunch for a cold mid-afternoon, especially not after a long morning.
The Vietnamese dressing keeps it from feeling heavy. This is the thing that distinguishes the rice bowl from a standard grain bowl: the dressing is fish sauce or soy based, acidic, fragrant, and sharp enough to cut through the starch of the rice and the richness of the pork. It doesn’t turn into a comfort-food slog.
Spring Rolls — the warm item most people grab first
Spring Rolls are fried, which means hot from the fryer. They’re often the first item people reach for at a group order or catering pickup — partly because they’re grab-and-go, partly because the heat is immediate and obvious.
As a solo order alongside a bowl, spring rolls function well as a warm complement. When it’s cold and one bowl doesn’t feel like enough, two spring rolls alongside a rice bowl is a substantial lunch without being excessive. They also carry temperature well: if you’re picking up and walking back to the office, spring rolls hold heat better than most other items on the menu.
The spring rolls at Soonta are Vietnamese-style — lighter than Chinese-style spring rolls, less oily, closer to fresh-fried than deep-battered. The contrast between the crisp outside and the filling inside is the point. They hold up for several minutes after leaving the fryer, which matters in a takeaway context.
Sweet Potato Chips — underrated from May onwards
Sweet Potato Chips sit at the edge of Soonta’s menu and often go unnoticed by people who are new to the chain. They get ordered more in autumn and winter.
The reason is basic: fried chips as a warm side are a different food category from the fresh, cold items, and when the temperature drops that contrast matters. Ordering a rice bowl with sweet potato chips is a different eating experience from the same bowl without them — warmer, more filling, and satisfying in a way that fits what a cold-day lunch needs to do.
The sweet potato chip is lighter than a regular fry — not as dense, not as starchy — which makes it work better against Vietnamese flavours. It doesn’t compete with the dressing or the pickled vegetables the way a heavier chip might. The portion works as a genuine side rather than a token extra that you’ve forgotten about by the time the main item is half gone.
If you’ve been walking past the chips because you came in for a bowl, the cooler months are the time to try them alongside one.
Edamame as a warm-side alternative
Edamame (Green Soy Bean) is lightly salted, warm, and simple. It’s not a winter comfort-food item in any dramatic sense — but it fits the warm side of the menu in the same way the chips do. Good alongside a bowl when you want something additional that doesn’t compete with what you’re eating.
It’s also the kind of order that people in a group naturally pick up and share. At a workplace lunch with a few people ordering individually, edamame on the table tends to disappear without anyone deciding it was their responsibility.
A note on the cold items in winter
To be clear: there’s nothing wrong with ordering cold rolls or a salad bowl in the middle of July. They’re still excellent. Regular Soonta customers often eat them year-round and find the chill a non-issue.
The point here isn’t that the cold menu is wrong in winter — it’s that the menu has more depth than the “fresh and healthy” brand presentation usually highlights. People who order only salad bowls and cold rolls in summer often discover the rice bowl in June and wonder why they hadn’t ordered it before. That’s not a criticism of the other items; it’s just a recognition that the menu reads differently when the weather does.
Ordering warm food at Soonta
The full menu is available across Soonta locations in SA, VIC and QLD. The Rice Bowl, Spring Rolls and Sweet Potato Chips are available at participating locations. For group orders in cold weather, rice bowls and spring rolls hold temperature better than the cold items if there’s any lag between ordering and eating.
If you’re ordering for a workplace catering event, Soonta’s catering menu includes spring rolls and warm items alongside the cold roll range. The catering ordering pages are separate from the walk-in menu and require at least 24 hours’ notice for most orders.
Find your nearest Soonta at soonta.com.au/locations or see the full menu before you go in.
