Just after Christmas in 2014, a tiny bar, Tambai, opened right across El Chupacabra, which was already drawing the more adventurous types to one of Makati’s oldest districts, Poblacion. Quaint and one-of-a-kind, both of the hole-in-the-wall joints were located a stone’s throw away from a dodgy red-light area… somehow, it felt just like Malate in the early 1990s. History was repeating itself. A powder keg had been lit. The neighborhood exploded, overnight, with dozens of distinct new bars and quirky restaurants opening in rapid succession. And when the smoke cleared, Poblacion had become the New Malate.
