The Duke of Wellington Pub – Silom Road

Located on a very busy section of Silom Road is one of the best-run pubs in Bangkok: The Duke of Wellington.  An English Pub, the Duke is managed by a real Englishman — Mark — who previously ran Robin Hood near Phrom Phong BTS station on Sukhumvit Road.

The Duke has a very nice decor, with comfortable heavy wooden tables & chairs, as well as leather-padded benches along the wall opposite the bar.  For people who are alone, or in a casual mood, there is a long table with stools.  It is usually occupied by men or women reading the newspaper or working on laptop computers (the Duke offers free wireless access).

This stretch of Silom Road is a business area, and the Duke is a businessman’s pub.  From 11:30 am to 2:30 pm Monday through Friday they offer a buffet lunch with both Western and Thai food offered in abundance at the very attractive price of 200 baht.  To my mind, this is a better value than the meat and potato buffet that used to be offered at the Irish Exchange.

Happy Hour runs from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and on Wednesdays you can drink pints of Tiger beer all night at a price of 80 baht each (Monday is Heineken night and Tuesday Guiness night).

The Sukhumvit Eye

In this internet age, it takes some balls to try to launch a monthly paper magazine.  But that is exactly what is being attempted by a group that calls itself Upright Media (Thailand) Ltd.  If I understand correctly, this is a corporate incarnation of Baronbonk, one of Thailand’s many online bloggers.

Apparently hoping to sell the magazine rather than give it away for free, the cover of “Edition 0″ sports the tagline: “Driven by Editorial Integrity Not Advertisers“.  In spite of this apparent promise to be advertiser-free, the magazine contains close to a dozen ads, making the cover tagline somewhat befuddling.

Page 7 has a Subscription Form offering 12 issues per year at a price of 1,000 baht.  It also provides a website (www.sukhumviteye.com) for those who would like to subscribe electronically. 

The magazine is self described as “by farangs for farangs…. report[ing] on matters that…concern us, from what is happening in the bars and sois to who is winning and losing on the playing fields, green baize and water hazards of this thriving metropolis.”  Oddly, the cover sports the phrase “by farangs for farangs” written in Thai script.  An attempt at irony?