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For Something A Little Bit Different


StoneSoup

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I've never seen this place mentioned on any discussion boards, but I paid a visit last night to a venue called The Mansion 7 in Huay Khwang district, on the east side of Ratchadapisek Road, a couple of hundred meters north of the Huay Khwang MRT Station. Google maps coordinates are 13.781418,100.574125

 

This place is sort of like a big enclosed mall, but themed as a cross between eternal Halloween, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Literally, it has adopted a dark and eerie motif. The place is huge - the main open floor is probably 70 meters by 90 meters, and is ringed by shops, bars, restaurants and some sort of "haunted house" attraction at the rear - for which you must buy an admission ticket.

 

In the big open space in the middle are various oddball kiosks - some of which are carnival games, along with a couple of small pool tables, and one octagonal pool table.

 

In front of the Mansion is very expansive parking lot - which stretches out north of the venue as well - probably room for about 300 cars.

 

I visited on Friday night, with a recent new lady friend in tow. We got there about 8:00 pm, and we left around 10:00 pm. The place appeared to be just "waking up" with significant customer arrivals as we were leaving, so this place probably hits its peak around midnight.

 

We spent most of our time at a pub at the left rear of the "mall" - called the "Beer Mansion". To my surprise, this place had about 50 or 60 different beers in stock, including about ten Belgian beers (including three different fruit lambics), all three Coopers ales from Australia, and various German and other European beers. On draft, I saw Singha, and Hoegaarden/Stella/Leffe. The wall behind the bar contains shelves with about 150 different beer bottles and cans.

 

To their credit, the service staff knew what they were doing - they had all the different glasses for each different Belgian ale, and they chilled the glasses before pouring. They even knew their selection - so that when I asked for Trippel Karmaliet, there was no blank look - they just went and got it.

 

Prices were reasonable - in the 150 to 200 baht range for the various foreign beers.

 

Service was good - servers were friendly, but did not appear to be used to seeing many farangs. I was the only foreigner in the Beer Mansion bar, although I did see what appeared to be a 20-something foreign lad, his Thai girl, and his visiting parents sitting at a small "beer garden" next to the Beer Mansion.

 

There are quite clean toilets at both ends of the mall. One oddity was that outside the regular men's and women's toilets was a "Dog Toilet" - a two meter square section of Astroturf (presumably over a drain), witha low fence around it. So - evidently - dogs are welcome to visit this mall.

 

This "mall" is good for a night out - and it would probably take about ten visits to exhaust all the possibilities. I recommend this place, for a change of pace. My Thai girl enjoyed the place. They have a website - but almost completely in Thai: http://www.themansion7.com/index.html

 

The Beer Mansion section is at: http://www.themansion7.com/shop_gallery.asp?id=27&cid=6 I shall return there.

 

Cheers!

SS

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...We spent most of our time at a pub at the left rear of the "mall" - called the "Beer Mansion". To my surprise, this place had about 50 or 60 different beers in stock, including about ten Belgian beers (including three different fruit lambics), all three Coopers ales from Australia, and various German and other European beers. On draft, I saw Singha, and Hoegaarden/Stella/Leffe. The wall behind the bar contains shelves with about 150 different beer bottles and cans...

 

JS, when you say there were 50 or 60 beers in stock and then say that there were about 150 different beer bottles and cans on shelves, presumably that means the beer bottles and cans were just for show? Still, 50 or 60 beers gotta be the biggest beer selection in LOS. Nice find. :up:

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The cans and bottles on shelves behind the bar were just for show. One can was Pabst Blue Ribbon beer!

 

If you go to the photo gallery at http://www.themansion7.com/shop_gallery.asp?id=27&cid=6, you can see a shot of the bar and display wall.

 

I forgot to mention that this place has two levels, and there is stairway at the back that leads up to the second level.

 

The website is a Flash website, so I can't reference that particular photo - just the gallery page.

 

One thing for certain - if you get close, you cannot miss this place. It is right back from the sidewalk/footpath (with parking lot in-between) and its frontage is at least 100 meters wide, and extremely"noticeable" - as in http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zpO_lup_3m8/TaOZnNG94yI/AAAAAAAABpE/iou1VuiKNwE/s1600/SAM_1161.JPG

 

Cheers!

SS

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Well, my Thai lady friend surprised me last night by insisting that we go back to Mansion 7 last night, to explore further. So - I can now add a few more details.

 

The whole complex is non-smoking - but they have two smoking "rooms" - one at either end of the mall. There is seating in these rooms, which are partly open to the outside of the building. Last night, interestingly, at least one of those smoking rooms had a fairly lively crowd occupying it, and laughing and joking among themselves.

 

We went back to the Beer Mansion. This time, I looked at their beer menu. They have 50 bottled beers, plus five draft beers, and then three other "beers" that I could not figure out (maybe blends, similar to a "black and tan"?). The signature beer that they stock must be their "Fucking Hell Original" - you can Google that name to obtain the pedigree.

 

The middle of the complex - "the playground" - is basically full of midway "test of skill" carnival games, at which you can win various stuffed toys. Around the perimeter are various high-end video dame consoles - in all sorts of categories. There are also three or four pool tables - but some with a bit of a unique nature - see http://t.co/Yk1GExMX.

 

We the went on down to a second bar called "Cocktail" at the opposite end of the complex. This was also an interesting place. As per its name, it specializes in high-end cocktails, which you select from an iPad tablet menu - when you click on a selection, it gives you an enlarged view of the drink, the price, plus lists the ingredients off to the side. Apparently (although we did not pursue this), if you want a specific brand for one or more of the ingredients, they will try to accommodate you. We chose a Mojito, and a Mai Tai - at 240 baht each. They both came in fairly large cocktail glasses, with full-up garnishes. The prices seemed a bit steep, but I was OK with it. Then - my Thai girl advised me that since we had ordered our initial drinks just before 9:00 pm, we were entitled to "buy one, get one free." At around 9:30 pm, we finished our drinks - and - sure enough, they brought us a second round. Final bill: 480 baht, for four high-end cocktails.

 

The walls of this place were occupied by row upon row of "gnomes" - plaster castings of a "snow white" type dwarf - see : http://t.co/Hp4mL3WZ and http://t.co/CKNdtrft

 

Last night, sadly, the whole complex was almost empty. When we left around 9:50 pm, there were probably fewer than 100 customers, total, throughout the whole complex.

 

There are about five bars in the complex, plus about a dozen restaurants, and maybe 15 clothing and accessory shops. There are maybe 20 different "carnival midway" style activities out on the "playground."

 

Most of bars either have a live DJ, or a live band on Fridays and Saturdays, according to signs.

 

Service was pretty good everywhere - easy because there were few customers, but noteworthy in that no one appeared discouraged to the point of apathy by the low customer count.

 

My Thai girl's departing comments - "We gotta' come back, and bring more people with us".

 

Cheers!

SS

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