Pagadian Food Options & Hotel Camila

While in Pagadian City for 3 days, we stayed at Hotel Camila along Ariosa St. near Rizal and Fajares avenues. For a room rate of Php 699/night without breakfast, its very reasonable. Rubylyn, Emil, and their colleagues at front desk are all very helpful, and would always assist guests on their queries. The rooms are quite old but clean, while some bed linens need replacement due to thinning thread count. Water pressure needs more strength to ensure consistency of hot shower to work. Still, I wouldn't mind staying back at this hotel for their location, rate, and warmth of customer service.

Their Sunburst restaurant is one of the few air conditioned and "upscale" restaurants in the city. The quality of food is good enough during our room service experiences, although it takes more than 30 minutes before they are served, whether inside the guestrooms or on their dining area. 

Our first meal in Pagadian was a late lunch at Kamayan sa Pagadian. It was our first time to try sinuglaw, a "kinilaw" or fish ceviche topped with grilled sliced pork for Php 130 of reasonable portion size. Of course, we also tried their grilled chicken specialty at Php 85 with unlimited rice servings. 

Buko (coconut) juice from its freshly opened shell costs Php 25 per serving, while each pork barbecue goes for Php 15 or Php 20 per stick. We're just too hungry to take a photo of our ordered food. Total lunch cost was Php 307 for 2 adults and a small kid. My son enjoyed watching their dancing Santa Claus, and they also have a yellow phython on a cage.

While at Dao Dao Gamay islet on our second day, the islet's resident fisherman allowed us to taste a freshly-opened sea urchin roe, a favorite delicacy called "uni" in Japan. I don't like the taste of packed unis that were frozen and transported for many days, but this experience of eating a newly-caught uni made me a convert. Like fresh oysters, I think fresh unis would be great with an ice-cold beer.

Lunch on second day was at JB Inato Grille along Fajares avenue after the city plaza on the left side on the way to Rotunda. The place is almost deserted that lunch time, and it seems that their busy period is during dinner, as its more of a bar with band stage and dart area. Their mixed seafood sinigang is good and has large serving. Their grilled chicken seems better than Kamayan's but with smaller serving, and the included rice has no refill. Total meal cost is Php 274 for the three of us.

Next dinner and breakfast were spent on nearby Lester's Eatery, just a 50m walking distance at same street from Hotel Camila. This is where the locals eat, where most food are ordered turo-turo (have to be pointed) style. Portion sizes are small, good for just one person with small to medium appetite. Our dinner of grilled milkfish, a veggie dish, 3 small barbecue sticks, guinataang halo-halo for dessert, and a soda drink costed us only Php 96! Breakfast on the same place on our last day was only Php 46.

Pagadian is popular for buying cheap dried seafoods. From our hotel, we just walked to the outskirt of Agora Market along Fajares avenue near the pier. This is where we bought 3 kg of dried squids at less than half of Manila market price, among the many stalls on the area.