Pondahan Restaurant

Place is very nice and clean. Service is excellent. The food is probably the best Filipino food we’ve had in West Covina. They’re probably a little more expensive than your run of the mill Filipino restaurant but they’re totally worth it. Large servings with great tasting food. We ordered the sotanghon soup, lechon kawali and Laing. They were all delicious and we even had enough left over to take home. We capped it off with turon w/​macapuno ice cream. We definitely highly recommend this place to all our friends!

Friend and I got the classic burger from the sandwich section and the size of the burger was pretty bad. The fries were oily and somewhat cold. The lady came and apologized for the small burger and offered a discount. When we got the bill, she didn’t put the discount and they lost $ 2 from our bill somehow and I ended up having to pay extra … Lol the vibe was nice but probably wouldn’t go back due to the service …

Food and service was excellent. They even accommodated vegetarian like me. They allowed me to order chopsuey with tofu and arroz caldo witg no meat… so ready for the dessert. Yummy!

If there was a score lower than 1 star, I would give
was my first time to eat at this place (and it will be my last)…the inside was ok, but the food turned me off! It didn’t taste good! We were invited here after a funeral service nearby. We had a buffet style of service. But the entrees served were not too delish! adobo (w/​potato) was watery, pancit was blah, beef steak was too rubbery to chew, sweet and sour fish was a joke, Lumpia shanghai tasted like it was just thawed and pakbet was like reheated twice already! I wanted to get more lumpia but the owner (looked like she was) told me to allow other people to eat first.
I was like «isn’t this a buffet? «I just turned my back and ignored her. What a thing to say to a customer! But overall, eating at a fast food is much better option…

Sadly… poor service means poor ratings on Unilocal.
I came in early and sat down at a table and waited for the rest of my guests (3 other people) to arrive. (I arrived early so I can be there before the surprise birthday lunch) 15 minutes passed by and not even one server came up to me to ask if I needed water or anything. Mistake #1. Then another 15 minutes passed and I had to flag a server down to ask if we could put in an order of the appetizer sampler and get a round of water before my guests arrived. The server gave me this look and an attitude and quickly walked away while I was still talking to her.
Another 15 minutes passed and my guests arrived and still, no water, no appetizer. I mean, I get it, that you’re busy, but we were just completely neglected the whole time. This was my second time coming here and I had a great experience the first time when they first opened. Now, I’m not sure what happened. These servers need some lessons on how to be attentive and courteous to their guests. I’ll stick to Salo Salo.

Got the pancit bihon and it was good but i took it home as leftovers and it was gross the next day. I was not a huge fan of their kare kare either, I felt that it was a bit on the bland side. Not the worst place I’ve been too, but i have definitely had better.

Awesome Filipino food!!! We ordered the grilled squid, crispy pata and garlic rice and they were the bomb! I’m usually not a fan of ordering grilled squid because they always end up rubbery and flavorless but their grilled squid was flavorful, juicy and very tender! Their crispy pata was so on point. It was very crispy on the outside and very juicy on the inside. Garlic fried rice was so good too you just can’t stop eating it. It pairs very well with all the ulam (viands). We ordered buko pandan for dessert and wow it was really good. I’m definitely coming back!!!

Sarap talaga I’ve been eating almost everyday and this restaurant is one of the standout above the rest Very delicious and not salty The portion is just right The atmosphere is do relaxing The price is reasonable The service is just right Definitely me and my family is coming back

Food: ⁴⁄₅ stars
Very promising from the outside as you approach the restaurant. The grilled flavor waffled through the air invitingly. We ordered a variety of dishes to share.
³⁄₅ Chicken adobo. Too light in flavor.
³⁄₅ Sisig. It was ok. A bit flavorless to my taste.
³⁄₅ Garlic fried rice. I saw the garlic but barely tasted it.
3.5÷5 Pancit bakabok with fish flakes. Good flavor but noodle was too wet for my taste.
⁴⁄₅ Lumpia Shanghai Egg rolls. Good solid little rolls of crunchiness.
⁴⁄₅ Eggplant ground beef omelet. Very very good Asian style «omelet». The egg doesn’t cover the ingredients like western omelet. It’s a part of the mixture and fried in deep oil. It’s served on a banana leaf that enhanced the taste and presentation.
4.5÷5 Seafoods platter grilled consisted of whole milk fish, red snapper, whole squid, prawns, mussels, and onion salads. I preferred a less blackened look to the food but the taste was not bitter from too much charting.
Atmosphere: ⁴⁄₅ stars
It’s in a strip mall but on the side. It looked out of place. It also looked closed from the outside unless you look at the open sign closeup. Once inside the atmosphere is warm and inviting. The decorations has an Asian flair to it but fusioned nicely with good color palates.
Service: ⁴⁄₅ stars
Very good and efficient service. All the wait staff were ready and happy to serve us. All requests were done immediately. Staffs din’t just sit around but walked around and paid attention to all the tables.
Expense: ⁴⁄₅ stars
15% tip mandatory for party of 6 or more people. Prices were quite reasonable for the quantity and quality of food.
Return: ⁴⁄₅ stars
Yes. If you want decent Phillipino food with good device then give this place a try.

It was my first time here and my friends had already ordered. I see kare kare and and paella next to each other on the table?! Whudda hell? I know about the Spanish influences in Filipino cuisine but paella was news to me.
Seriously nice try on the paella. The rice was a tad bit al dente… the hard boiled egg garnish is a nice touch Filipino style but not traditional obviously. The sauce for the kare kare was super thick which I love! Oxtail perfectly stewed. U gots to get it.
Be back for Filipino Breakfast comsilog. They couldn’t possibly mess that up.
Filipino food with a bit of refinement and relaxed atmosphere is how I would sum up Pondahan.

Very authentic Filipino food. It’s good. You should try it. The owner is super nice. They always recommend you new dishes to try. The restaurant is clean and parking is not an issue.

3.5 stars
Pondahan is located near the West Covina Mall, in the same plaza as Yogrutland and the ex-​Fresh & Easy. Plenty of parking within the plaza. Our group was seated right away — noticed the restaurant started to get busy around 12:30pm.
Sisig ($ 9.50): Small pieces of pork served on a small skillet, comes with lemon wedges. You can either have the dish in mild or spicy. We ordered the mild and it wasn’t spicy at all. I would recommend the spicy. The dish tasted like just fried pork w/​no other sauces. Too oily for my taste!
Pancit Bihon ($ 8.95): We ordered the vegetarian version which used only soy sauce and pan fried with tofu instead of meat. Overall, the dish was simple but very tasty, even for a vegetarian version!
Pork Adobo ($ 9.95): The pork adobo was not what I was expecting at all. The presentation resembles a beef stew with the brown sauce. I’m not a huge fan of the sauce but the meat was tender.
Combination Fried Rice ($ 8.50): Yum! My favorite of all the dishes we ordered. There are bits of fried garlic on top which really make the dish. Lots of different types of meat and veggies.
Halo Halo ($ 4.95): Leche Flan (+$ 0.50): If you have tried the Vietnamese «Che Thai» this is somewhat similar! Different variety of beans, jello, fruits, etc. You can top off this lovely decadent dessert with your choice of ice cream — normally served with ube.
Banana Turon ($ 3.95): With ice cream of choice (+$ 2): We opted for the coconut ice cream which paired perfectly with the deep fried bananas. The flavor of the bananas was very subtle, wish it was a little stronger. Overall, still delicious.
The service was overall great our entire stay. The only con is the food came out in spurts with plenty of waiting time in between =/

OVERRATED
Maybe I need to recreate another « Unilocal talk» about soCal Filipino food and get other recommendations. I wanted I like this place but it was just «ok» for me. My expectations of Filipino restaurants in SoCal have fell below the radar. I’ve even gone the distance to the neighborhood pockets of Filipinos and still haven’t been wow’d. I still think the BayArea has the best Filipino restaurants.
Staff and service was good. Place is spacious reminds me of a restaurant in the Philippines. A lot of locals seem to eat here, I’m not a local but I could tell. The flies dodging for our food was annoying and at times we had to cover our food with napkins — so Filipino.
SIDE OF RICE — equates to five scoops. We Filipinos love our kanin.
PINAKBET — we all know our moms make the best and nothing compares but sometimes it’s unfair to compare anything to moms cooking. We ordered this and tried eating it with an open mind. I’ve had way better!!! This dish is a hit Or miss at restaurants and I’m repairing it was a miss for me. The portion was smaller than I thought but I’m glad it was small because is hate to waste something I wasn’t a fan of. The taste of shrimp really took over the dish and it tasted as if t was sitting out for a long time. I only had a few spoons and called it quotes with continue eating the dish.
SINAPALUKANG MANOK — the portion was much smaller then what I expected. The flavor if the sabow was good but the only vegetables in the soup was green beans and I swear I thought it comes with other vegetables. Luckily this dish was at its standards!
BANANA SPLIT — can’t go wrong with dessert! Perfect to share with another as its one big banana and two scoops of ice cream of your liking (mango, coconut or ube) — mango was the picking. No complains with this one.
Until the next review…

Brunch on a Sunday is something we love to do. However, Pondahan restaurant which serves Filipino fusion dishes and also traditional Filipino dishes is a good destination on any day.
Parking was easy to find and finding shade on this super hot day was a must. We were seated right away. The place has big overhead fans and there is a/​c throughout. The tables and seats are very nice. The employees are very friendly and helpful.
Their menu is sectioned and explained well. For non-​Filipino customers, the menu is very detailed and should not be a challenge. Their prices are fair and not bludgeoningly out of anyone’s budget. Our damage came out to $ 32. Not too bad for two people.
As soon as our food came out, my hands shook from trying to take pics for this review and because I was so hungry. Anyhow, I took the pics and went to town on the fish, garlic rice, and grilled pork. The eggs and eggplant were all delicious.
Now we have to try the crispy pata and make room for desert next time. There are so many yummy dishes here and it is a shame not to try them all.

I was hoping to show my mom some of the Filipino food I have tasted before at our Christmas party. However she was not quite impressed with the flavor.
We ordered the Original Pancit Malabon, which was a mistake on my part. She would have preferred the Pancit bihon. The rice noodles were a bit thick and the sauce was too fishy for me. We left almost the whole dish untouched.
As for the Lechon Kawali — Crispy pork belly — my mom complained that it was too dry and the skin was not crunchy enough. Oh well. I liked it, but maybe she was comparing to the crispy skin of the roast piglet that we get at a Chinese banquet.
We also had the Halo Halo with the ube ice cream. It was delicious. I filled myself up with that. Too bad I didn’t take a picture of it before stirring it up.
Anyway, sorry for the bad review. Maybe the food were just not to our taste.

Finally a spot near El Monte. Came here for lunch with a couple of my friends. The food was delicious! Had some Kare Kare, shrimp fried rice and some miki bihon. The servings size was pretty decent «family style» (they also have lunch specials). I can’t forget the crisp Lumpias. So yummy! The service was great and we got our food within 10minutes. For all this food it was only about $ 42.
Will definitely be coming back!

Came by this restaurant with my husband this evening around 7:20 pm. We waited about 5 minutes for a table (which we were seated right by the door and did not like the cold draft ever so often blowing in my face whenever someone opened the door).
After browsing the menu, we ordered:
The Original Pancit Malabon, $ 8.95 prior to tax– My husband ordered this. It comes with 5 pieces of sweeten cookies. Our server told me that when you order spaghetti, you get garlic bread and so with this dish, you get these sweeten cookies. I liked the cookies but the noodle dish itself wasn’t really to my liking. It was quite salty (reminded me of strong flavors of fish sauce and soy sauce). My husband eventually got used to the flavor and finished it. He said it grew on him, but I still wasn’t a big fan of it.
Chicken Adobo, $ 9.75 prior to tax– I ordered steam white rice ($ 1.50 prior to tax) with this dish since rice is not automatically served with it (boo, this is how restaurants make that extra money by charging a la carte). I am a big fan of chicken adobo and used to eat it a lot when I was a kid (my babysitter, who is Filipino, used to make this for me all the time because I would always request it). I thought this adobo was pretty good. The sauce was good (and went perfectly well with the rice) and I really appreciated that the chicken was boneless and skinless (this is my first time ever having adobo off the bone and skinless from a restaurant).
Garlic Rice, $ 4.95 prior to tax– My husband ate most of my white rice (he wanted to add it to his dish to soak up all of that tangy sauce) and so we decided to get the garlic rice. I wished I had ordered this in the beginning (this size of this dish is good enough for 3 – 4 people to share). I loved the garlic flavor throughout this rice and would like to do the same when I make rice at home. Because I ordered the small order of white rice with my dish, our sever told me she would only charge me half for this (which was so nice of her and unnecessary. I would have paid full price for this).
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Total= $ 25.23 after tax, prior to tip
This place was busy and so I was not surprised that service would not be attentive.
Overall, food was good (well at least my chicken adobo dish), so I would come back.
By the way, there is a $ 1 charge if you pay with credit card (only Visa & Master Card is accepted). I opted to pay with cash to avoid the $ 1 charge.
Also this place is behind Yogurtland and right next to Diamond Nails & Spa. There is plenty of parking as well.

This place is awesome… a hidden gem. Deep fried sizzling milkfish and bicol express was yummy. That gravy sauce and garlic rice though… drool. Chicharon bulaklak was good but pure fat… because that’s what it is! Service was excellent.
We will be back to try the ube banana turon.

CRISPY PATA!!! Deep fried pork hocks! As weird as that sounds, it is quite delicious. If you aren’t afraid of offal (though hocks aren’t innards), then this is one dish you have to order from Pondahan. It comes with two sauces and the plate is huge. One vinegar sauce that cuts down on the fattiness of the hocks. And believe that is it is quite fatty. The other is a sweet sauce that adds to the flavor of the meat. This dish is definitely something you want to order to share. I came with friend and we couldn’t finish it between the tw There will be crispy pork skin, pork fat, and pork meat on the bone. Nothing too out of the ordinary but people get weird around bone, so you are warned.
The location is a bit odd as it’s in the back of the strip mall near the big Westfield mall. I didn’t know they designed strip malls to have businesses in the back, but I guess they do.
The service is quite lovely and the décor is dark wood and makes it feel like a tropical teak restaurant. I definitely would like to try their other offerings next time!

Rated as the best filipino restaurant in east SGV, this place doesn’t disappoint. One of the most famous items on the menu is BBQ pork (lechon). If it’s your first time, you have to try it. Think of it as crispy fried pork with the skin on.
As for other items, they’ve got milkfish and all your other favorites. Nice ambiance. Parking is small. Great deals if you come for lunch.
Famous for: lechon.