Thread: Marmite's Guide to British Style Pubs in Bangkok

I am staying in Soi 11 Sukhumwit when I visit in November. The first post in this thread made reference to Cheap Charlie's and it seemed to be the sort of place I would like.
Are there any other bars in the general area between Nana and Asoke which are comparable, please ?

The price of drinks is not the most important thing for me but, as I will be travelling with three women, all Thai,my wife, the mother-in-law and an aunt, and I need somewhere to go which is obviously a bar for drinkers only and which will guarantee my freedom to get "pleasantly pissed" without feeling as though I could be subject to frequent monitoring by them. Once they are confident that I am behaving myself, they will bugger off shopping and I will be free !

Thanks, I'm a new person but have read all the previous posts in this thread. Just need up to date information, please.

Thanks

Had a sandwich in O'Reilly's in Silom back in August. Never again! 300 baht and it tasted as bad as the gasless pint of Asahi that the waitress poured me.

I think Cheap Charlies is a classic case of the Emperor's New Clothes. Uncomfortable, noisy, often populated by people with really loud voices who assume you want to hear every word of their conversations. But yes, the beer is cheap.

Around the corner, The Pickled Liver is nothing special but it's pleasant enough. It really does remind me of an English pub in that it's a place you go to meet mates or sit with the paper and a pint and, er, that's it.

yep; agree on the liver
theres a good german place as well

Thanks. I'll try Cheap Charlie's and the Pickled Liver as both are near my hotel.

Does anyone remember Bobby's Arms in the car park in Patpong 2? They used to clean up, until first the Irish Bars then the British ones opened. I went to go there a few months ago and they looked as if they had been closed for some time. Going to the pub, via a car park was unique, but hey, this is Thailand.

Bobby's was cool as hell. Better than the ones now as it was not a chain, or built on dirty money.

Originally Posted by ThomasN

Does anyone remember Bobby's Arms in the car park in Patpong 2?

I do yes. A shithole with no real beer.

Originally Posted by ThomasN

Does anyone remember Bobby's Arms in the car park in Patpong 2?

Yes, it was the meet-up point for my mates and I before we hit the Pong.

It was a good place 15 ^ years ago and Peter the F&B manager prepared some great farang food.

Have not been there since those early days and cannot offer anything more to this discussion.

Originally Posted by ThomasN

Does anyone remember Bobby's Arms in the car park in Patpong 2? They used to clean up, until first the Irish Bars then the British ones opened. I went to go there a few months ago and they looked as if they had been closed for some time. Going to the pub, via a car park was unique, but hey, this is Thailand.

Several years ago Bobby DeCrozier landed the Cafeteria concession at International School Bangkok in Chaengwatttana, that must have been a goldmine, all those kids from well off families and nowhere to eat except Bobbys' Cafeteria!

When my daughter lattended ISB, she left 8 or 9 years ago, Bobby and his wife were always on hand to make sure the thing ran smoothly: I am sure he decided to concentrate on ISB and let the other places - where he had to keep a bunch of half-cut Farang happy and contented - just go hang.

Patrick

Almost all of these pubs are shite... Not Marmite's fault of course.

The Black Swan is good. Nice food and beer. Dave is a good bloke too.

The Roadhouse is good, has some interesting beers and food too. Makes a nice change.

Mulligan's is good because it's 24 hours, has Guiness and sport and food and pool and a nice toilet (). I prefer the place when less Thais are in there (monied up young twots), but I also prefer it when less English drunk backpackers are in there... Had lots of good nights in there, but spend too much, get too drunk and sometimes the missus gets upset when I don't arrive home (she once sent the police down to collect me!).

Witch's is good, but expensive, but good.

The Irish Exchange (or whatever it's called) is good on a Sunday for sport, Guinness and lunch. Reasonably priced and okay.

The very worst, for me, are:
Any place around soi 4. Gullivers. The Londoner (truly awful beer, and full of stupid foreigners). I've never enjoyed the Bull's Head, seems to lack any kind of atmosphere and seems cliquey.

The best? Nowhere is outstanding.
Spent most money? Witch's or the Log Cabin.

Cheap Charlie's is an excellent little bar with the cheapest prices in the area. Mr Sathit looks exactly like Jackie Chan. He pretends he doesn't speak English but I know that he does ! Trapped him one night by saying that he had a lot of money and could afford to shut on Sundays, he understood immediately, smiled, and went back to pretending again.

Thoroughly pleasant little place with an amusing owner who makes a lot of money. Best of luck to him !

Thoroughly recommended.

Smart looking, well appointed bar with a nice open seated area. Unfortunately, it tries to be all things to all men. So, inside we have a mixture of pool hall, sports bar and blaring techno music which gives an overall impression of being muddled. The staff are useless and this is better apreciated if one visits in the afternoon when twelve waiters/waitresses, with about sixcustomers, piss about, shouting and playing, leaving customers to somebody else to tend to, and when they do, paying so little attention so as to get the orders wrong nine times out of ten.

The food is overpriced, as is the beer. There seem to be attractive freelance girls there in the evening and this adds further to the confused status of the bar.

I used it in the afternoons just to take advantage of the wi-fi so that I could download my British newsaper. When the wi-fi failed to work, nobody gave a damn. If I decided to check the slips in my glass so as to see if they were correct, it was certain that one of the muppets who masqueraded as bar staff would run to me and offer to add it up for me with a poxy calculator !

I found the place to be incredibly annoying and would advise others to give it a wide berth.

Just made an update to Soi 8 Bar...

** Update 25/01/11
I visited the Soi 8 Pub last week and the Midget and I both had an early lunch there. It was terrible. I had a lamb pie that tasted like it had been deep-fried and it was only served with chips; no salad or veges. The Midget's Thai style salad was also poor and suffered from whoever prepared it being too lazy to cut the onion up properly. Out of 3 waitresses there, only one didn't look like she wanted to strap a bomb-belt to her waist and take the 5 customer to Hades with her. That's the last time I'll be going there.

Only pub I've been to on the initial list is Chequers..and a fair few times..

Cheese and pickle innit..