This paper is concerned with frequency regulation in islanded microgrids via an event-triggered adaptive dynamic programming method. Comparatively to the existing works, we relax the typical limitations on the system, namely, exactly known models, constant load impedances, and single operation mode. The adopted frequency regulation scheme can reach frequency synchronization within the acceptable bounds in the presence of the model uncertainties, operation mode switching, and time-varying loads with no need for any prior information on the system parameters. By employing an event-triggered scheme, the secondary controller is updated only at the aperiodic triggering instants which contributes to less transmission cost. Besides, the use of measurements can help the adaptive weights to be adjusted online in the approximation process, which allows the proposed controller to adapt to the disturbances in real time. Finally, tests including the islanding process and load variation are performed in MATLAB/SimPowerSystem to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.