Café Soya

Amazing find! Café Soya has an extensive menu specialising in South East Asian cuisine with an abundant selection of meat, vegetarian (including faux meat and tofu) and vegan options! The ingredients are always fresh and excellent quality, the flavours incredible! I highly recommend the vegetarian vermecilli papaya salad! Delicious! xxx

When eating at café Soya I always choose the same thing. Their Won Ton Noodle Soup is just so amazing that I have been eating it for years. However, today I decided to try something new. Sticking to the soup theme, I chose the seafood noodle soup. My sister went for the beef stew soup in addition to chicken fried rice.
As these are all main dishes, there was certainly plenty of food. As usual, the soup was great. It was filled with lashings of noodles in the tasty broth, plus king prawns, squid rings and fish balls (which I especially enjoyed). I also tasted my sister’s rice dish which was as delicious as it looked.
The vibe in this café is relaxed. It is a very large area which is very different from its sister site in the Arcadian which is very small. It is very airy and light which is perfect for lunchtime. The staff are very polite.

Very tasty, fresh food and big portions. Lots of choice on the menu and a great selection for vegetarians.

Delicious food, the reason i haven’t rated them 5 stars is because their waiting stuff is very slow. We also ordered 3 dishes that didnt come out same time

Ill set the scene… it’s Monday evening its a bit rainy… so instead of going home after the gym myself and Emma M decided we would go and have a slap up Vietnamese meal at Café Soya. This is a place I have walked past loads but have never got round to visiting… I already know i will be back again.
I decided I would have the soya coconut shake which was a delight. It was like a coconut slush with shavings of coconut on top served in a tall milkshake glass… Emma order the fruit tea and immediately had drink envy! For my main I had a seafood salad which was a huge potian, fresh and delicious. The food was all served quickly and our waitress was a happy smiley person… its amazing how much of a difference that makes!
At about £12 each this place is not only good quality it is also a bargain. The restaurant itself is very no frills making the food and drink the real star. Another thing to note is that this place is a bit of a vegetarians paradise! The menu is split into two halves giving anybody not into meat options more choice than I have ever seen before.

Great food, very reasonable prices and the service now has some pace! Previously it’s taken yonks to get served and even to pay, but that seems to be a thing of the past. This place is great for after work socialising if you work in town. I’ll be back with friends for mid week suppers that won’t break the bank.

Café soya was recommended by a number of people and glad we decided to have dinner there the night before the Great Run. The space is huge so it’s great for groups and interestingly enough they have a section for karaōke (we unfortunately didn’t participate in!)
For our table of 7, we ordered a bunch of dishes to share. I’d recommend passing on the starters only because the mains are HUGE. I think I am use to London portions but still — quite a lot of food to go around.
Since it’s called café soya, I thought it would be good to have the aubergine and tofu dish. It was really good! I had it with egg fried rice and would’ve been good with just plain rice as well. Really good black bean sauce. I tried a bit of the chili tofu (spicy!), pepper steak with udon noodles (yum! get an extra side of rice with this!) and chips with curry sauce. I’ve had chips with curry sauce before but it’s so much better with the type of curry they serve (japanese style).
We had so many dishes that it barely fit on the table! I tried a bit of everything but don’t quite remember it all. Def would love to come back next time I’m in Brum.

Been twice. Great Singapore noodles. Also saw someone famous eating there. Food was fresh. Can get busy.

This is the only restaurant I miss having moved out of China Town a couple of years ago. It is and probably will always be my favourite restaurant in the area as I have never had a bad meal there… probably because I choose the same dishes every single time…
Tofu Fish and Sweet Chilli (58)
Chilli Pepper Squid Fried Rice (36)
Honestly you can’t go wrong with the above… and this is coming from someone who does not usually eat seafood. The Egg Fried Rice at this place IMO is the best in Brum.
So my last visit to Café Soya was on the Saturday 16^th where I organised a karaōke event for my birthday. Café Soya have a great deal with their private karaōke rooms where you pay £20/​head and this covers room hire and food. And when I say food, I mean FOOD… you can order 3 starters, 5 main courses and 2 sides… all served in buffet style and replenished throughout the night. Here’s what I ordered:
Starters:
Lemongrass Chicken Skewers (2)
Mini Spring Rolls (107) V
Sesame Prawn Toast (3)
Mains:
Chilli Pepper Squid & Prawn (70)
Sweet N Sour Chicken (65)
Tofu Fish and Sweet Chilli (58)
Spicy Singapore Vermicelli (120) V
Papaya Salad Vermicelli (114) V
Sides:
Egg Fried Rice (87)
Spicy Chips (85) V
We were given the room from 7.30pm to 11pm, and food was served more or less straight away. I had doubts that it would taste as good in buffet form, but you don’t have to worry. It tasted just as good.
The Karaōke room seated 30, we had 27 in our group and it was a tight squeeze when everyone sat down, but once people were up dancing and singing, it was the was fine. The karaōke interface was a little hard to understand but after a while we got the hang of it. They have recently updated it to include some of the latest songs too.
I could not fault the service, we had our own waitress who took drinks orders and a team of waiters coming and replenishing food as and when it was running low. At the end of the night they all came and surprised us with what was the biggest birthday cake I have ever had… it was as delicious as it was big! They also provided us with take out boxes so we could take any leftovers home. We were supposed to leave at 11pm, but we were not rushed at all by the staff, and they made sure we had a good time.
I would 100% recommend Café Soya to anyone wanted authentic, delicious vietnamese/​chinese food and would recommend booking the karaōke room for larger parties.
I’ve posted a few photos below.
SKC

My second favourite restaurant in Birmingham. I have taken so many friends (and dates) to this place! The vegetarian options are as varied as the meat which is always a rarity but a joy to see. The atmosphere is always relaxed and the service is really good. I think it is definitely good value for money and would recommend. :D

I wasn’t enough satisfied with the dishes and the service. I went there with my boyfriend and he chose the prawns, fish balls and pork with fried noodles. The fried noodles was too fried I men too crysp to eat. And get just 2 prawns on the dish.
I ordered a phở soup which is a traditional Vietnam soup. The rice noodles over cooked ant too much «green stuff «. It wasn’t too bad but it’s not the real. The service wasn’t attentive they didn’t put on the table fork, knife or chopsticks. I asked them for that things. They brought separate time the dish between 10 minutes

Hmm well I was excited to visit this place as i’d heard great things! However it wasn’t that great. Our sitting was for 6pm and there were a reasonable number of diners and staff about at that time, nevertheless it took until 9.30 before we finished after only two courses! We waited ages for our drinks, which came almost at the same time as our starters and even they not everything came out together. The same thing happened with the mains and we had to keep asking for water which they never seemed to remember. The food itself was quite pleasant. We all ordered something different and all plates were cleared, but nothing especially memorable. (Starters around £4 and mains around £10.)
To make things worse they tried to add experts to our bills as we were a group. But our bill said no added service charge, so I got that removed from my bill as I didn’t think they deserved a tip.
They have a reasonable veggie menu and do fun drinks such as bubble tea, but if you don’t eat that then i’d head to a different Chinese restaurant.

Delicious! Every time I come here I always leave satisfied!
Plenty of choice for my veggie friends too. So fresh and such good value for money!
Plain and simple setting but served by the sweetest waiting staff who could be a little more on the ball at times

I’m going to get the negative out of the way first; the service at Café Soya is… unpredictable. My colleagues and I quite often go here for lunch as it’s near our office and they have a good value lunch menu. However, we often wait for ages to be served even if there’s hardly any other customers in, quite often two courses come at once, or one person will recieve their meal ten minutes after the rest of us.
That said, the staff are polite and generally hurry to rectify things if we voice a complaint. And you really can’t fault the food. It’s a broad ranging menu, but every dish I’ve eaten there has been tasty and wholesome, not at all greasy or filled with artificial flavourings like Chinese food so often is. Several of our usual party have food allergies, including myself, and there are also two vegetarians in the mix, and they’ve always been able to accomodate us.
In short, I’d highly recommend trying it, but don’t go when you’re in a rush.

Have had takeaway from here previously, and dined in with a friend. The food was pretty amazing, and great for vegans.
It loses two stars for customer service. We were constantly having to remind staff that we had ordered a drink, and they had forgotten to bring it over.
Other than that, I would return for the quality of the food, and the speed of it coming to the table.

Ive been visiting café soya since my uni days, as it keep everyone happy… theres meat for the non-​veggies, soya for the veggies, fish for those who cant eat non-​halal, and they do rice noodles for those who don’t eat egg too.
The lunch menu is very reasonable and for £6.95 you get a drink, main and dessert. the portion size is always good and service is usually quite quick. The restaurant is clean, well presented and has a nice atmosphere.
Over my eight years of visiting this restaurant, I’ve only had a few bad experiences, all were related to miscommunication as some of the waiters have poor English… for example once they gave my sister squid instead of chicken because thy thought she had asked for that option, and once they gave me meat instead of the soya option, but changed it immediately when i told them. So i would just say if you are veggie i would re-​iterate it several times.
The bathrooms are not great, they look nice, but haven’t been particularly clean every time I’ve been.
Recently they have started adding a 10% service charge on the bill, I’m not a huge fan of this as i feel its my choice to leave a tip or not depending on the service i receive. I also don’t like the fact they don’t give you a broken down bill, just a piece of paper with the total bill so a lot of people wont notice this extra charge.
But all in all i would visit again, the food tastes really good and you get a lot of food for your money, and it’s in a really convenient location.

This was my third visit to Café Soya, they’re always a popular choice in the Chinese quarter.
I was so pleased that they kept to their lunch special menu on Bank Holiday Monday. I had a Chinese tea, Spicy Beef noodles soup and a fruit salad for £6.99. It was a really good deal but can only be a good deal if the food is good, which it was.
What distinguishes Café Soya from other restaurants in the Chinese Quarter in Birmingham is the great portion size and great service. If you’re a vegetarian this place is a most. Half the menu for the lunch set is vegetarian with mock meat dishes included.

Great restaurant.

Not satisfied just to offer a long and delicious menu packed with all of my favourites, Soya Café leaps into action to keep the peace between me and my vegetarian peers. Anything on the pages long menu of Chinese and Vietnamese dishes can be made with vegetarian friendly fake meats!
The food is great and the service is fast if slightly impersonal. They also have a wide range of desserts, sweet drinks and alcohol that are much nicer than one would usually expect from a quick and affordable Chinese restaurant.
The restaurant is large and with fast turnover there is rarely a long wait, even during weekend evenings. Televisions have been placed around the dining area, drawing your eye up and away from the wonderful food creating a slightly distracting stream of reminders about their karaōke banquet room available for hire.

I went here after trying to research a place in Brum that would make one of my favorite (oops, favourite) soups, phở. Well, I got something close to it — beef noodle soup. I won’t lie — it was pretty good and hit the spot for me — the vermicelli noodles were good enough. Only downside was that the restaurant doesn’t take cards — cash only. But I’ll definitely come here again and try some of their soy dishes. It beats bothering the crowds at the Bullring and is worth the walk up.

Soya divides people — there are the soya fans who will scoff the stuff with reckless abandon and the soya haters who will do anything to avoid the bean-​based protein. Think of it as the far-​eastern Marmite. Thankfully, Café Soya has plenty to offer the lovers and haters alike. They serve an extensive menu of authentic Chinese-​Vietnamese dishes. To start, I adore the steamed pancake rolls and pork dumplings — the dipping sauces are so delicious that I could eat a dish of them alone. The signature papaya salad vermicelli is real treat — with mounds of spicy chicken and prawns, served atop a zesty salad. Vegetarians have plenty of choice and the fired tofu dishes are enough to tempt even the most die-​hard carnivore. Portions are huge, so take care not to over order.
The surroundings are no-​frills and the big-​screen TVs can be quite distracting, especially if your dinnertime coincides with an especially grizzly episode of Casualty.
It is always fun to dare dining companions to load up a prawn cracker with the spicy chili oil that features on every table. Watching their colour rise and steam come out of their ears is highly amusing.
Café Soya might not be the swankiest of venues, but it makes an ideal place for a fun meal with friends before a night out. The food is the best Chinese I’ve found in Birmingham and the prices are really good.

Café Soya has established itself as one of the most popular, modern oriental cuisine eateries in the city centre and it was almost full and pretty busy on a wet Wednesday evening. There is no need to book mid week though.
I would highly recommend the traditional Vietnamese steamed pancake rolls — a healthier alternative to a crispy spring roll but packed full of flavour.
Both of our mains involved tofu (Pipa Tofu and Salted Fish with Aubergine & Tofu) but were not meat free dishes. There is a full vegetarian menu with new mock meat dishes, but we weren’t offered this which is a shame. The service isn’t award winning and sometimes there were communication problems but this just adds to the fun, laid back and friendly atmosphere.
Their set lunch menu looks like extremely good value and I’ll be finding an excuse to try that very soon.
And I also spotted two karaōke rooms which may need further investigation!

Surely one of the best options in Birmingham city centre. The décor is clean and basic but if you’re here it’s not for the ambience it’s for the food. The Chinese /​Vietnamese menu has over 50 dishes to choose from and though large menus can often lead to compromises in quality, in my experience everything on offer is fresh and delicious. My personal favourites are the big bowl soups with Ho-​fun noodles (ask for them to be made Tom yum flavour if you like a kick), but experimenting with unknowns here is always rewarding. The portions tend to be reasonably priced (ca. £8 for a main) and large enough for most people to not need appetisers, while the staff will be friendly if not always the most efficient which fits with the family feel of the place. Possibly not the place to impress on a first date, but suitable for pretty much everything else, I love it.