Use the ng-click directive to trigger a method that is available on the current scope. In this case, I’m using the $ionicSideMenusController which exposes itself to the current scope. This controller has the ability to programmatically trigger the side menu with toggleLeft(), toggleRight(), openLeft() and openRight()
More documentation on this follows as soon as beta 1.0 lands on the moon (which is expected to happen within the upcoming week)