Surrey or Surat Thani?
Anybody attending the opening of The Masons Arms in Thongsala on Friday 20th July could be forgiven for thinking they were in the county of Surrey, England and not in the province of Surat Thani in southern Thailand.
This is a unique venture upon Koh Phangan, truly the first of it’s kind, a traditional English pub. We have all seen those bars that give themselves a name like ‘The Red Lion’, throw some Tetley’s beer mats on the table, put up a dart board and then call themselves an ‘English’ pub right? Well The Masons Arms puts them all to shame, this is the most authentic English pub I have ever seen in Thailand.
The moment you enter the car park you know this is something different, the only slight tell tale is the palm tree in the front garden. The rest of the grounds have been furnished with wooden bench tables and umbrellas and the foliage has been chosen very carefully to look less tropical than you would normally find on Koh Phangan.
Moving inside you find a full bar along one wall, a pool table, proper seating in the restaurant area and the best toilets I have ever seen in a bar on Koh Phangan.
Currently only Singha is served on draught (in pint glasses of course) and a variety of English lager and ale is kept in cans in the fridge behind the bar……
I’m not sure if the owner, Shawn (or should we call him the landlord?) is planning to introduce more draught beers. I did ask him if he could spare me five minutes before I left to get some background and information but in true English pub style I was somewhat inebriated by the end of the evening and thought it best not to subject Shawn to my drunken condition.
It was fairly amusing watching some of the Thai ladies trying out John Smiths for the first time, they had only ever seen lager before, bitter was a completely new experience for them.
The food menu is also something quite different, for a start there is absolutely no Thai food on it. It looks and reads just like the menu in my local back in blighty, including things like a mixed grill, scampi and macaroni cheese. Although not cheap the portions were generous and the quality was top notch.
All in all I think The Masons Arms is a brave venture, certainly completely different to everything on Koh Phangan we have seen so far.
So cheers to Shawn, mines a pint of Singha next time you see me.
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