The Other Side of Mae: Family Sunday Roadtrip: Rodolfos Cuisine and Mon's Grill

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Family Sunday Roadtrip: Rodolfos Cuisine and Mon's Grill

On the second Sunday of the new year, we had our first family getaway! The quickest we managed, off to Pagadian and Mahayag we went just to eat!

First stop, Rodolfos Cuisine at F.S. Pajares Ave, Pagadian City. It was Papa who recommended the place for he already tried it out with friends and he wanted to eat their tinola again. Yeah, right. Fish tinola again and again. No matter where we are, it's the tinola he always wants to eat. In contrary, the rest of us had an over indulgence of pork. We had pork Bicol express, pork sinuglaw, liempo, and chicharong bulaklak. Gosh! It was like, cholesterol check don't care. Haha! We just didn't realize that what we ordered were all pork until the food came in to our table. But we enjoyed every bit of 'em! It was like "fiesta!" as Rio often says fondly of. Hehe.....

On our way home, we dropped by at the fruit stands to get a load of sweet melons. Price check, cheaper than what we have in our market. Quality check, ripened in its own time. Just so fresh from the farm!

Then we hit Mon's Grill at Mahayag for their now getting famous halo-halo! Word of mouth has it! Perfect perfect halo-halo all worth the long drive! It's not that grand as what other halo-halos are but it's just a quite simple mix of "a little of everything", as Auntie Bebot quipped. It has langka, ube, macapuno, sweetened banana, leche flan, sago, garbanzos, gulaman, etc. Topped with cereals, a scoop of ice cream, and grated cheese, well, well, well, it is just so mouth-watering! This reminds me of the halo-halo I had in Naga a long, long time ago which I considered as the best halo-halo ever! Now it's a great thing Mahayag has a version of it already. I've tasted it once again! Additionally, the crushed ice is really fine that you'll not have a hard time chewing it which also adds to the tempting taste of the halo-halo. And the secret ingredient is so so secret because it is there at the bottom. Maybe it's the condensed milk which gives it sweet consistency or maybe it's the all-purpose cream which makes it creamy. I really don't know. So we just ate up to our mouth and stomach's delight!

Hay, unplanned family outing like this is just as sweet as halo-halo. Visit Mon's Grill just along the highway to Mahayag's bus terminal/market. You can barely see or notice the place for it's just a humble grill house but mind you, plenty of cars park outside 'coz they are now renowned to be visited by customers from far-flung places just to have a taste of their halo-halo. So here's how the outside of the resto looks like for you to be guided.