Most interesting bars :
Tilac Bar : Many girls ; coyotees during the WE ; reasonable prices.
Lucky Star (Long Gun) : Small, but long established. Sexotic shows.
Baccara : Flashy, best designed bar, expensive.
Rawhide Bar : Both cute girls and off putting women.
Dollhouse : The best and longest lasting happy hour.

Baccara (rating : )

Updated September 2009

Tip : Lady Drinks (as other drinks) are very expensive at 160 baht. Barfine high. High noise level.
The line-up at Baccara is sliding down. Many of the more attractive girls (especially upstairs) seem to have moved out. While a smoking ban is in place at Soi Cowboy since Februari 2008, Baccara Bar (quite unnecessary, we did not see a decrease in customers when they disallowed smoking in the bar), allows smoking upstairs. It can be a quite smelly experience when you arrive there..

The bar layout of Baccara is definitively one of the best in town, and has up to now as far as I know, not yet been copied successfully. The bar has two floors. The ground floor has a 'classic', well lit dancing stage. The girls dancing there wear a bikini top combined with a short skirt. On the second floor, girls wearing 'schoolgirl' outfit, dance on a transparent floor. Most of these girls will dance without panties and one of the two shifts of girls danced topless. It a common site to see the customers below extend their necks to get a view of the 'interesting' parts. The girls dancing on the second floor tend to be rather young, though some of them probably look young because of the outfit they are wearing.
The girls downstairs have also done away with their knickers. There are mirrors on the dancing floor and on the bar counter. For quite a while these were very useful. However, over the last year or so, the reflections of the mirrors on the dance floor itself have deteriorated. Time for some renovation, we would think.
Interestingly, quite a few of the girls at Baccara have found it necessary to have their breasts enlarged surgically. First a few did it, and over the past year or two, the number of 'balloon' ladies has increased steadily. We are not really attracted to girls with supersized breasts (especially when they have an otherwise fragile overall body size). It kind of looks like a form of self-mutilation, certainly if the did not have sagging or post-pregnancy breasts to start with. But we guess they do it for a reason. The difference in motion when the girls are dancing around is quite astounding (that is, the 'balloon' breast are stuck in place), and actually we are not quite sure the surgeons did a good job at all.

As mentioned, the outlay of the bar is second to none. The bar further expanded around July 2007, when it annexed the small bar (Pam's) adjacent to it. The dancing floor downstairs has been enlarged. There are many girls now dancing downstairs and Baccara Bar and Tilac Bar are now the two largest go-go bars in Soi Cowboy. There are some drawbacks though : high noise level, 'house' music and the highest prices for lady drinks in the soi.

This bar is much frequented by Japanese customers, who fancy the transparent ceiling. I am told this kind of bar is not uncommon in Japan. As a result of having many Japanese customers though, some of the girls have become quite choosy, neglecting the 'farang' customers, since most of them offer less money for activities than their Japanese counterparts.

Beers and standard short drinks cost 140 baht. Even more 'impressive' is the price you need to pay for a lady drink, a whopping 160 baht. So just sitting down at Baccara and ordering a drink (provided one of the girls gives you any attention) will set you back about 300 baht. Not that long ago (we reckon about 2 years) your expenses would be around 200 baht. Inflation (but more surely greed) is hitting hard, especially since the Thai baht is strenghtening ever more in the currency market. [the sliding baht was often quoted in the past as the reason behind price hikes]
It has also been reported that when you want to buy out a girl (we would not comtemplate that at all, surely most the girls overcharge) you need to buy at least two drinks for the girls, on top of paying the barfine. In practice, this means the barfine has been increased to about 900 baht.
As in most bars, you can now also get bottled water as a drink, but Baccara is the only bar we know that uses really small water bottles (I guess they must be used by certain airlines).

One final comment : Excessive noise levels at times in this bar. To be avoided for frequent visits if you value your hearing capabilities. One solution is to escape to the second floor, where the music is (more) bearable, if you sit behind the speakers.

This is a J-bar - more
This is a 'fast-turnover' bar - more

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