If you're the type who likes to drink in somewhere akin to a dingy, smelly, hallway, then The Offshore Bar is right up your street (or Soi as they say in Thailand).
It's another in the cluster of beer bars on Soi 23, just around the corner from the racier Soi Cowboy. The bar is a kind of long thin area with bar stools lining the bar and, because of the lack of space, bench seats with small tables placed behind - leaving a small corridor between to allow passage. This means that, if you're on the bench seats, it's difficult to talk to whoever you're with because you'll be sitting in a row, rather than around a table. I don't know why I wrote "if" you're on the bench seats, because if you go in here - you will be. And you'll be staring right into the backs of the stool-holders. The stools are always occupied by the regulars; they ought to have their names on them. They probably do but it's too hard to tell in the dingy lighting.
You might well wonder how come I know this place so well if it's so bad. I have a friend who was a regular, and that was where he liked to meet. If you know everyone there and have earned the dubious distinction of being a stool-holder, then it might be OK. Otherwise, you're in for feeling like a bacon sarnie in a mosque.
Even the staff are cliquey, they'd much rather be chatting up the regulars than bothering with you. There's always a kind of damp smell in there too.
There is one good thing that this place has going for it, however. In the last couple of years, they have added a fish and chip shop next door. It's completely different. Bright, airy, friendly, and boy the food is good! They've got all the equipment, just like a British chippie, and offer the same range of meals (sit in or takeaway)at very reasonable prices.
There are many places that claim to do the best fish and chips in Bangkok, but few live up to it. The Offshore Chip Shop does. Pay a little bit extra to get the "cod and chips" rather than the "fish and chips". You can drink in the bar, place your chippie order, and they'll call you through when it's ready if you'd rather not sit waiting in the chippie.
But, given that you can go to the chippie without going to the bar, I'm giving the bar the thumbs down.
Update 2007: We went to the chippie recently and definitely wouldn't recommend it. Maybe it's because the staff aren't supervised properly or something. I dunno. I wouldn't go back.
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