Imagine that Bangkok’s On Nut Road, when coming up on Sukhumvit Soi 77 and connecting downtown with Suvarnabhumi Airport is actually London’s Piccadilly Road. If we accept this analogy, then the road should end at Piccadilly Circus, a major road junction and public space in London.
However, the route along the On Nut Road does not end with such a Circle and actually goes all the way down to Lad Krabang district in the south-western most part of Bangkok, but you’ll be surprised to find out that even before you reach the bridge crossing over Srinakarin Road, there’s a place called Pickadaily Bangkok. It’s not a Circle, but rather a fancy community mall which offers a similar experience to Chocolate Ville, the Scandinavian-themed set of restaurants on Nawamin Road in Bangkok and Palio, the Italian-inspired “village” in Nakhon Ratchasima province.
Pickadaily Bangkok is a place that tries, with some success, to reproduce the atmosphere of an old English village mixed with more modern and kitch-like attractions that one might be tempted to have in the background of a holiday photo when in England. Launched at the end of 2013, Pickadaily Bangkok wants to be exactly that: a place where people like to come and take pictures and, hopefully, once they’re there, to stay for a drink and a meal and possibly to spend more money in some of the other shops that dot all around, throughout the mall.
To a certain extent, Pickadaily Bangkok, a project built and owned by Areeya Property, has succeeded in creating an atmosphere of “foreignness” where people, mostly Thai, but also foreigners, like to go and pose in front of a friend snapping photos on a smart phone or an expensive-looking camera. There are enough opportunities for such instances in front of water fountains, phone booths (with no phones!), benches with statues of children reading, French windows, a huge chess board with a few pieces on it, huge iron bicycles (even including a penny-farthing mock-up), a small bridge over a “pond,” plus plenty of green trees specific to a tropical climate.
If you happen to find yourself alone at Pickadaily Bangkok, you can always take some selfies or even use the trendy selfie-stick to better capture the background. The buildings imitate a Gregorian architectural style with its specific high, rectangular windows. Actually, from the main street, these buildings look quite impressive and the big red London double-decker “bus” at the front feels welcoming to any passer-by.
So, on the spur of the moment, you’ve decided to check out this foreign-looking place and step up to the main courtyard. You’re immediately invaded by the kind of decorations described above and right there, in the middle of it all, stands the “Statue and Fountain of Eros,” which actually tries to imitate the original one in London’s Piccadilly Circus.
If it’s a weekend and it’s getting late, then you’re most likely to see a weekend market which is regularly set up in the courtyard but if it’s a weekday and, even more, if it’s day time, then the place is most likely deserted with just a few groups of graduates or newlyweds taking pictures for their memory album. Although there are a few booths for vendors to sell their wares, they are regularly empty until the weekend market.
Once in the courtyard you can cool down inside Kafé Retro where you can order a coffee for 50 to 70 baht (depending on choice of size and whether you want it hot or cold) and maybe even a delicious looking brownie (45 baht) from their extensive offer of bakeries. Actually, if you don’t mind the heat, the chairs in front of the shop are nicely positioned under some tall trees, thus providing some shade from your usual Bangkok sun.
But you came all the way from you residence to explore the place, so once you’re done with the coffee and have brushed off all the brownie crunches from your shirt, you can go up to the first floor. Here, facing On Nut Road you’ve got your usual True Coffee shop and a small branch of Pizza Hut.
These are places where you can surely go to almost anywhere else in Bangkok so, as an excellent alternative why not give Vie ha long a try? It’s a Vietnamese café and restaurant which offers very good and decently priced choices for a quality lunch. For example, you could have white rice with chao tom, charcoal grilled minced prawns on sugarcane (185 baht) and a plate of chui chian, deep-fried banana ball garnish with icing sugar and honey (85 baht). If you haven’t had your dose of caffeine by now, a roasted Vietnamese coffee for only 35 baht would take care of that.
For dinner you could try Bangkok Grill, a restaurant specialized in stakes, soups, salads and spaghetti where you can order set meals or stakes for anywhere between 130 and 430 baht. If you’ve landed at Pickadaily Bangkok in great numbers and are ready for some real “damage” then I recommend Red 14, an international BBQ buffet restaurant where you can eat almost as much as you can within the set time of one and a half hours, for just 450 baht.
After lunch or dinner it’s time to continue your shopping at Tsuruha, a Japanese pharmacy and cosmetics store, or do your weekly shopping at Max Value Tanjai. Tired of shopping? Then try Café D’Oro and enjoy their nice decorations, comfy set up and quality drinks and cakes.
But the real jewels at Pickadaily Bangkok are to be found at the back of floor one, where more Indy places struggle to remain financially afloat. Here you can choose from Tsukimi, a Japanese restaurant where a sushi set costs 175 baht and then get a waffle set for 119 baht (medium size) at Keep Calm and Gelato. Other choices include Belly, a steak and ice cream café, three Thai restaurants selling rice dishes, noodles and som tam, and Liquid & Solid, a place that sells a combination of every kind of cuisine (Western, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai). If you’re a bit of a sweet tooth, then Candy Kiss is the place for you, where every imaginable Japanese candy awaits to ruin your denture.
All this eating and drinking will probably balloon your belly, so while you’re still at the back of the first floor, you can take more pictures of yourself in front of a flower shop and fruit stall, all sporting fake products made of plastic.
You’d also want to go to the second floor which presents more food and drink places and shopping opportunities. Either you take the lift or go up the escalator or just use the old fashioned staircase, but whichever way you get there, you won’t regret the effort. The view of the entire place with all its kitschy decorations and fake architecture are perfect for your Facebook profile while your followers on Instagram will be red with envy!
With the picture-taking session done, you can go window-shopping. The second floor has a fancy hair salon, a music school, a language school, a nail spa, an eyewear shop, a shoe shop, a massage place (250 baht for one hour of body massage), and a shop selling brand name watches. Now, to be honest with you, most if not all, of these business ventures look in dire need of customers and, actually, some places were boarded up and looked like the owners left in a hurry after going bankrupt! But there’s still hope as, at night-time, Pickadaily Bangkok sees much more “traffic” when parents bring their children for after school classes and mothers wait for their kid’s lessons to finish in one of the lady’s venues.
There’s hope for the men too. The Castle is a small bar where you can sit and have a glass of wine while Sixpence is your “classic” British pub and restaurant where you can play at a dart machine and/or have a pint of cold Guinness for 220 baht (although Guinness is an Irish stout and not from England!). If you start craving Thai food (again!), Kai Yang Ko-Rat is your one and only Thai restaurant on the second floor of Pickadaily Bangkok.
With slight variations, most of the places open late in the morning and close at 10pm or 11pm, with longer hours at the weekend when there are more customers. In case you run out of cash, there are enough ATMs on each level to support your shopping needs (all you need is the money in the account). Since the place is less than a year old, the toilets are clean and odourless and there’s also a designated smoking area so, there’s no real need to sneak a ‘cheeky-one’ in the toilet cubicle.
Pickadaily Bangkok has plenty of parking space, both at the front, on the side and at the back. Even more, it’s the only few places in Thailand that has a mechanical parking lot. Actually, you might not even notice it at first, as it is located in a glass and steel clock tower vaguely reminding you of Big Ben (although the real Big Ben in London is actually located on the River Thames in Westminster and not in Piccadilly Circus). However, it must be noted that this vertical parking structure can only hold up to 18 cars and all have to weigh below a certain weight limit while a valet parking attendant will park your car and also retrieve it for you. There is also a car wash right at the back, below the first floor.
Pickadaily Bangkok (www.pickadailybkk.com) is located between Soi 37 and 39 on Sukhumvit Road 77 (On Nut Road) and the easiest way to get there if you don’t drive your own car is to take the BTS to On Nut station. From there, you can grab a taxi for a 50-baht ride. You can also take the air-con bus number 1013 (10 baht) or you can take the more frequent white songtaew with the numbers 1, 4 and 7 (7 baht). Alternatively, you can take the Airport Link to Hua Mak Station but, although it’s closer to your destination, you’ll have to take a taxi for the 3-km ride to Pickadaily Bangkok as it would be far too complicated to use public transport.
Photography by Jojit Pangilinan
A much shorter version of this article was initially published in Mango Metro (September 2014, Vol.8, No.10)
