Poblacion in Makati continues to draw diners hankering for food concepts beyond the mall and off-the-beaten track. These neighborhood haunts often jostle for space with other establishments, but therein lies the thrill of discovery.

People who have been to the area often stumble across new eateries that weren’t there on their last visit. As a result, they often do an impromptu restaurant or bar crawl and end up discovering new favorites.

Tilde

Tilde Hand Craft Café, open for a year now, has undergone a few changes. Chef and owner Ginny Roces de Guzman initially wanted a full-service café but realized that people preferred a place that offered breakfast and comfort food.

“We used to be open till 9 at night but then customers would come in, share a slice of cake, and linger over coffee. The staff by then had been up since daybreak,” she told Lifestyle.

“Since most of our clients come for breakfast or throughout the day to buy our homemade sourdough or a whole cake, we decided to focus on catering to their needs.”

Tilde has also become a favorite of the ladies who lunch. “One afternoon, we had a group of nine women for lunch. They ended up sharing 12 bottles of wine and were here from noon till 4 p.m. It was a very happy lunch.”

People still remember De Guzman as the founder of Sugarhouse and have come to expect a certain level of quality of her baked goods. Her selection of cakes and pies includes Chocolate Fudge Cake, Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting, Mango Pavlova, Turtle Pie, French Apple Pie and Lemon Meringue Pie.

“From a café concept, we want Tilde to be known also as a cake shop,” she said.

De Guzman recalled that she started the Sugarhouse bakeshop in Poblacion 34 years ago in 1983. She has since left Sugarhouse, but pointed out, “In a way, we’ve come full circle. We’re back where we started.”

Much, however, has changed in Poblacion since then. The vibe now is friendlier and more neighborly.

“We help each other out. When people ask for suggestions on where to go, we freely give recommendations. Sometimes, we see foreigners on the street outside and we wave to them. They come in and end up staying for coffee or a meal,” De Guzman said.

The pumpkin soup at Tilde, served with a slice of crusty sourdough, is warm and satisfying. If you prefer something heartier, the Sisig Carbonara topped with a fried egg (P380) is meaty and filling.

“In Italy, they use ‘guanciale’ in their pasta. It’s a cured meat product prepared from pork jowl or cheeks like our sisig, so it made perfect sense to use it in our carbonara,” De Guzman said.

Rural Kitchen of Liliw, Laguna

One restaurant that comes highly recommended is Rural Kitchen of Liliw, Laguna. De Guzman said that they recently held the birthday of her mother in the two-story restaurant on Palma Street, and it was a hit.

She described the food served as “clean and consistent” and listed the pako (fiddlehead fern) salad and the Guinataan na Munggo (sweetened mung bean) as favorites.

Chef and owner Justin Sarabia serves dishes his late maternal grandmother used to prepare. In 2011, he took up culinary studies in New York even if he claimed in a YouTube video not knowing “which hand to hold his knife with, the left or the right.”

In the video, he goes on to show that he now knows his way around the kitchen, preparing a dry pork adobo cooked the way his lola used to do it— stewed in vinegar and salt, and deep-fried before serving with three types of relish.

During a recent dinner, we sampled the pako salad that was fresh and tangy, thanks to a bright lemony vinaigrette, okoy (shrimp fritters), baby squid in spicy glaze, and the flavorful pork adobo.

Don’t forget to pat some of the sinantol (santol rind cooked with coconut milk) on the bread; it’s delicious.

The Palma branch is the second Rural Kitchen branch in Makati. It is more spacious than the original one in Legaspi Village, but still brightly lit and tastefully designed.

Bucky’s

Named after the baked good created by Miguel Vargas, Bucky’s now serves more than the dense, chocolate cake-like treat. After closing the first Bucky’s store on Aguirre Avenue, BF Homes Parañaque, last year, Vargas opened in Poblacion.

The small joint now has a devoted following that makes a beeline for the soft-serve ice cream as well as the savory items now on the menu.

“It was really part of the plan to keep evolving,” he said, describing the menu. “First-timers should try everything. It’s such a small menu so it’s definitely a focused one.”

Vargas singled out three items: fried chicken, baked ziti and milk-flavored soft-serve. He then agreed with De Guzman about the neighborhood vibe.

“The people in Poblacion are really friendly,” he said.

Tilde Hand Craft Café, G/F, EWC Bldg, 5417 Matilde cor. General Luna Sts., Poblacion, Makati; tel. 7712764; open Mon-Sat, 8 a.m.-7 p.m. and Sunday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Rural Kitchen of Liliw, Laguna, 6060 Palma St. cor. Osias, Poblacion, Makati; tel. 8091898, 0917-8650567.

Bucky’s, 5666 Don Pedro St., Poblacion, Makati; tel. 0916-7545140, 0917-8445104; open daily, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.