Blending Filipino flavors with Mexican classics, Chef Mike Obedoza gives a modern take on Filipino cuisine to represent his roots growing up in the city of Carson - a suburb of Los Angeles.  

Unlike other chefs, Mike Obedoza grew up aggressive in-line skating and as the industry began to shrink, Mike looked towards hospitality and food to be true to his Filipino culture and began his journey to create a restaurant skatepark. 

After earning a Bachelors at Cal Poly Pomona in restaurant management, Mike made his way to Napa, California to earn a Culinary Certificate from the Culinary Institute of America.  Immediately after the program was completed, he headed over to the motherland, the Philippines, and was introduced to Pulutan - a Tagalog word to describe food that is to be consumed with beer and fell in love with a popular dish called Pork Sisig.  

Coming back to the states, Mike felt Filipino dishes could be combined with Mexican components and added limes, onions and cilantro and created Filipino tacos, feeling the dishes were perfect with the fusion.  

Aggressive inline skating pulled him out of the professional kitchen as he began to work in marketing, organizing skate events, filming social media skate clips and making skate sections for his skate sponsors.  With the inline skating industry shrinking, it forced him out and led him to the fishing industry to become a Marketing Manager in ecommerce that further fueled his entrepreneur spirit.  

But it wasn’t until Covid, when Chef Mike realized he never got his skatepark restaurant and making the most with what he had, he got with a group of other aggressive inline skating business owners and began to host a taco event every first Sunday of the month at a different skatepark in Southern California.  

The tacos were a hit and it began to lead to more business, catering, and Chef Mike began to explore the food pop up scene going to food festivals and breweries.  Realizing he was only getting older, and that his cuisine is important to the culture, he quit his job, giving up the safety of a 9-5, putting him back on his journey for a restaurant Skatepark.  

Follow banger tacos and be a part of our journey as we navigate this unexplored territory as we are on our way to making something we thought was impossible, possible!   

Visit Chef Mikes YouTube channel - Blading with Chef Knives to get food demos and recipes for inline skaters.