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Archive for the ‘Newsletter 2012’ Category

The Olde Bell British Pub Newsletter

February 2012

Dear Gold Card Member,

There have been quite a few developments at The Olde Bell over the past month that we hope will meet with your approval. More of that in a moment, but first the electrical news! Well, the short answer is: there isn’t any! We are still haemorrhaging electricity somehow and the quest continues to sort things out. We would though, like to thank all those Gold Card Members (more than 35 of you) who emailed us offering the numbers of electricians and suggesting solutions to the problem. We have had 3 or 4 people come in, 3 of whom didn’t have a clue and a 4th, well known to many of you, but no names should be mentioned here due to his nationality, spent a considerable amount of time poking around expertly inside our breaker switch box, and pronounced the situation to be insurmountable. As of today, we have persuaded EGAT (The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand) to come out again and have another look. Hope springs eternal!

On the positive side we have now installed, thanks to a most generous loan by a Gold Card Member, a 43 Inch plasma TV screen (why are those things still measured in inches?) This has been installed in time for the Six Nations Rugby Championship which starts tomorrow (more of that below). We think this will improve your viewing enjoyment here at The Bell and opens up a range of possibilities for showing movies, UK or Australian TV and lots of other stuff.

There have also been developments on the beer front. After a year or more of trying to offer the excellent beer from the German microbrewery that we called Doi Suthep Ale, we have finally given up and told them to remove it. Instead we have installed Kilkennny, which, for those of you who don’t know is a very pleasant Irish ale produced by the people at Guinness. This is currently priced at 176 baht for Gold Card Members which we think is the best deal in town.

Our range of Anglo Indian Curries is now available. We’ve got Chicken Tikka Masala, Chicken Dopiaza, Chicken Korma and Chicken Vindaloo. As we mentioned last month, these are easily the nearest you are going to get to the authentic British Curries we all knew and loved back home. We’ve also topped off our range (due to the above being a bit heavy on the Chicken) with Lamb Balti and King Prawn Madras. For a limited period we’ve also got Lamb Biryani on special. With the Curry and the Bitter, that’s two more essential tastes from back home to tick off. Now the search is on for the perfect Melton Mowbray Pork Pie!!

Cheese Night on 20th January was a great success with many people asking why it was only an annual event. so we plan on holding a similar evening sometime after Songkran. Australia Day was also an immensely popular evening – maybe we can persuade that nice Mrs Gillard to hold it more often!! (subject to approval by The Greens of course!!)

One other development to tell you about is the opening of a large car park right opposite the Olde Bell. This is open from about 6pm until about midnight. There have been a few teething problems which we won’t mention here for fear of falling foul of Thailand’s fledgling libel laws, Still it is a useful contribution for those of you who have long complained about the lack of parking in our part of town. It costs 20 baht per hour or 50 baht for the evening.

After all that news, we’d better get on and tell you of our happenings this coming month!

Six Nations As we mentioned earlier, 6 Nations Rugby starts this weekend and after the excitement of the World Cup last October, it will be fascinating to see which country is going to come out on top. This Saturday we’ve got France v Italy at 9.30pm this Saturday (4th February) and then the Calcutta Cup clash: Scotland v England from Murrayfield at midnight. This willbe the first Rugby Match on our great new plasma screen!! On Sunday the Celtic Giants take centre stage as Ireland Meet Wales at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin. (Lansdowne Rd sounded much better didn’t it?) The France/Italy game will be shown upstairs in the British Legion room (bedecked with comfortable sofas) and the commentary will be in French, to facilitate the football which will be shown downstairs (Stoke City v Sunderland and WBA v Swansea)

New Zealand Day Monday 6th Feb OK, some NZer’s aren’t massively enthusiastic about this day as its Waitangi Day when Britain pointedly didn’t give full responsible government to New Zealand, but we’re turning it more into an All Blacks Rugby Party. There’ll be a BBQ and a World Cup 2011 jersey to the winner of our free draw. Every ½ pint or bottle of beer you buy gets you a free ticket and we’ll make the draw around 10pm. Hope to see you then. This may be a long shot, but if anyone has any NZ songs that they could bring along on a memory stick, we’d be very grateful and we’ll buy you a beer!

Royal British Legion: Wednesday night is Legion night, (Gold Card Members are welcome to come along though you need to join the Legion to take advantage of some of their special offers) This month’s British Legion events include Wednesday 8th February. when there will be a Pool and Chips Night. A free plate of Chips (with curry sauce if you wish) for participants. (only 12 places are available and the first 12 who turn up at 7pm will get the places. If anyone would prefer to play darts, the board is available upstairs and you can qualify for free chips as well if you play. (If anyone is prepared to organise the darts there is a generous voucher available!)

On Wednesday 15th (the 3rd Wednesday of the month, some committee members will be on hand to discuss the forthcoming ANZAC day visit to Kanchanaburi (and sign you up if you’d like to go) and sell you tickets for the Legions massive 100 Club draw (25,000 Baht first prize) to be held at the D2 hotel on 1st April. Free Sandwiches will be available.

on Wednesday 22nd February there will be a Thai food promotion. We’ll be selling a range of Thai dishes with Western sized portions at Thai prices. these will include, Pad Thai, Beef in Oyster Sauce, Fillet of John Dory fish with sweet chilli sauce, Thai Beef salad, and spicy squid in Thai roasted chilli paste (Hoy Lai Ped Prik Pao) the will cost 30 baht per plate! (Olde Bell Gold Card Members are welcome to join us for the same special offer prices (This offer will not be available to the general public)

St. David’s Day Thursday 1st March. not strictly in February but its close enough. We’ve always had a bit of a bash on St. David’s Day and this year will be no exception. there will be a BBQ (cost 100 baht) includes, steak, burgers, Sausages, fish, prawns, potato salad, apple and celery salad & coleslaw. Welsh music, raffle, and promotions! The first 24 people who come along who are Welsh, of Welsh ancestry, from New South Wales, or whose name is David, will qualify for a free 330ml bottle of Leo, Chang Export or one of our special Red Dragon Cocktails. The fun starts at 7pm. Croeso i Bawb (Welcome to all)

Anyway, thanks for reading this and we hope to see you at The Olde Bell soon!

Best Wishes From

Pedr, Beer, Billy and the Staff

–
The Olde Bell: Cold Beer, Warm Atmosphere

The Olde Bell

British Pub

Newsletter

January 2012

Dear Gold Card Member,

Firstly a Happy New Year to those of your whom we haven’t since the beginning of the year & secondly sorry for the haphazard timing of these newsletters. The demands of the high season tend to take over and things get behind somewhat!

As this newsletter goes to press, we’re shivering here at The Olde Bell! Last night was a chilly 13C, with the possibility  of  even colder to come. Still it shouldn’t last more than another month before night time temperatures of 25C return so we’re enjoying shivering whilst we can! The day time is of course wonderful and with clear blue skies – a little rain last week to keep the air quality good and warm to hot days, this is the best time of year in Northern Thailand, so if you’re not already here, it’s worth seeking out some of the special offers available from recession hit Europe!

On the news front, Chiang Mai is currently hosting a re-run of the Royal Flora exhibition at the Ratchaphreuk show site. For Bangkokians this is a golden excuse to come ‘up north’ to marvel at the cold weather, whilst for expats, it’s merely a cause of  traffic congestion and for tourists it makes things a little tight on the hotel front, although with the sheer number of hotels in town, there are still beds to be had. We haven’t been yet, but Billy is anxious to go as they’ve got a ‘big wheel’ that he wants to ride on! It may be a Royal Flora but for most, flowers are at the back of their minds- which is just as well as sources say the displays aren’t that brilliant.

On the food front, we have unearthed a new range of curries, that were sold to us as ‘genuine Anglo Indian’ and they don’t disappoint. The Chicken Tikka Masala is out of this world and the Dhansak gets the thumbs up too. We hope to have these in stock by the beginning of February. On a quite different note, we found a great recipe for Fisherman’s Pie and this is currently being trialled as a special priced at just 140 baht! Early reports from Gold card Members give it the thumbs up!

As far as drinks are concerned, there are, unbelievably,  still problems emanating from last October’s flooding. These problems appear to be compounding by stock being held back by certain individuals in order to push up prices. We’ve no firm evidence for this, but prices are certainly higher than they were before October, with us paying up to 150 baht a case extra for Singha and Leo. Chang draught is available one week and then not the next. Rest assured that we are trying our best to keep full range of drinks for you to enjoy. We do have a few speciality beers for you to enjoy including Fuller’s London Pride, Melbourne’s VB and Coopers South Australian Pale Ale. Our microbrew beer which we called Doi Suthep Ale is no longer available as there are just too many problems in keeping it and the service from the microbrewery is poor.

Anyway, on with our happenings for this month and our events are marked this month by quality rather than quantity. so do read on:-

World Cheese Day: Friday 20^th January

We felt we couldn’t let this day go without marking it in some way, given that cheeseboards are one of our specialities! This year we’ll have our full range, plus a few guest cheeses available. There’ll be FREE crackers, toast, Tomato Chutney, Cucumber Chutney, Pickled onions and Beetroot.  The cost is 200 baht  which includes four 40g portions of cheese of your choice and a 175ml glass of wine, a ½ pint of Olde English Cider or a half pint of Guinness! Additional portions of cheese can be added for just 50 baht a portion. Things start around 7pm and there’s no need to book

Sporting Weekend  Saturday 21^st and Sunday 22^nd This weekend there’s a full programme of premiership football and Heineken Cup Rugby. On Saturday we kick off with Norwich v Chelsea at 7.45pm, followed by two of the nights big matches at 10pm. In the Heineken Cup, Irish outfit Leinster meet Montpellier of France at 8.30pm and then at 10.40pm Clermont take on Ulster.  On Sunday the Manchester Premiership race resumes with City taking on Spurs at 8.30pm and United away to Arsenal at 11pm. In the Heineken Cup Italian side Treviso take on Saracens at 8pm. do join us if you can.

National Pie Day. Monday 23rd January

This may be  a marketing gimmick by the American Pie Council, but it seemed like a good excuse to promote our range of pies. so we’re offering any of our pies at half price for the day. So you can get a Steak and Kidney Pie, Chicken & Mushroom Pie or Vegetable Pie  for 105 baht or Aussie Meat Pie for only 115 Baht If you participate in this promotion, we’ll throw in your first pint of Guinness for an unrepeatable 150 baht,  half pint of Olde English cider for 90 baht or a ½ pint of Chang for 40 baht!

Australia Day: Thursday 26^th January

Thanks to Olde Bell regular Bill, we have a full sized, Aussie Flag hand stitched in Vietnam  draped over our balcony as we celebrate Australia’s National Day. We might even get it washed by the 26^th!! How else could we celebrate such an event but with one of our famous BBQ’s. So whether you’re a fair dinkum Aussie, a True Brit or Irishman  or even a Kiwi or a Seppo,  you’re most welcome to join in the fun!  The Barbie will start around 7pm. The cost: 120 baht gets you all you can eat!! Cooper’s Aussie Pale Ale will be on promotion at 150 baht  as will Melbourne’s finest VB, but stocks are strictly limited so its first come, first served! If you don’t fancy the Barbie, we’ll have Chicken Parmigiano and Chips for 160 baht or Aussie Meat Pie with Chips and Peas for 195 baht.

 Six Nations RugbyThis starts on Saturday 4^th February and now that our brilliant, fantastic, wonderful satellite TV provider True Visions (cancel everything we said about them in the past!) have bought the Setanta channel, principal provider of Rugby in Asia, we’ve got all the games live (we’ll also have the Super 14’s, The Rugby Championship (Tri Nations plus Argentina)  and most of the rest of the rugby on the planet!   Watch this space.

Thanks for reading this and we hope to see you at The Olde Bell soon.

Best Wishes

Pedr, Beer, Billy and the Staff

–
The Olde Bell: Cold Beer, Warm Atmosphere

Dear Member

This note is to remind you that The Royal British Legion Sub Branch BR3625 will hold it’s quarterly Branch General Meeting on Wednesday next week.