Dish & Drink KC: Mexican soda flights at Ollama, summer Italian flavors at Lazia, and the Amaizing Sweet Corn Festival

Mexican soda flight at Café Ollama. // Photo by Tyler Shane

Café Ollama serves Mexican Soda flights

Coffee flights have taken the Kansas City coffee scene by storm as more coffee shops serve their own miniature sets of specialty drinks. Café Ollama, a Latin coffee shop located in the Crossroads Arts District, was one of the first to offer the highly coveted caffeinated assortments and is now switching things up with a new summer-friendly offering: Mexican soda flights.

Perfect for a hot day, the flights consist of four Mexican sodas served in 5-ounce quantities and include flavors like watermelon, coconut, and mango. All sodas are homemade concoctions elevated with simple syrups and Mexican candy for a unique tasting experience.

The michelada soda is a personal favorite and reminiscent of the traditional Mexican drink consisting of tomato, lime, and spices. The michelada mix is a family recipe and tastes like a more refreshing version of a Bloody Mary.

The candies that accompany the sodas are meant to be dipped and mixed into drinks to add flavor and texture.

Café Ollama is located at 523 Southwest Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64108. They are open Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. – 3 p.m. They are closed Monday.

Summer carpaccio at Lazia. // Courtesy Lazia

Lazia’s new summer menu

As us Citians continue to bear the sweltering heat (seriously…100 degrees?), Lazia’s new summer menu is here to remind us why the season is not all bad. The Crossroads Hotel’s distinguished restaurant is serving up Italian nostalgia with locally inspired ingredients.

A chef favorite is the antipasto dish, carpaccio. The classic appetizer is modernized with summertime staples such as basil acqua pazza verde and pickled green tomatoes, adding the perfect amount of acidity to cut through the richness.

The woodfired pizzas have always been renowned menu items for the restaurant, and folks will not be disappointed with the newly added Fonduta pizza. The white pie consists of potatoes and artichokes and is topped tableside with a secret Tallegio fonduta recipe.

Be sure to try the Roxanne’s Revenge cocktail, a refreshing libation consisting of Italian gin and a house made lavender syrup. 

Lazia is located inside the Crossroads Hotel at 2101 Central St., Kansas City, MO 64108. They are open six nights a week from 5-10 p.m. They are closed on Wednesday.

Amaizing Sweet Corn Festival

We just wouldn’t be in KC if we didn’t have a corn festival, now would we? But let’s be real, corn deserves all the hype. After the Harvest is an organization helping to reduce food waste and food insecurity. Their goal is to harvest 50,000 ears of fresh sweet corn to feed food insecure individuals.

In honor of this goal, The National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame is going to be hosting the 2022 Amaizing Sweet Corn Festival, which will feature several food trucks in addition to fresh picked and grilled sweet corn and watermelon slices.

Food trucks include Taco Cacao serving tacos and burritos, and Polar Oasis serving frozen treats like shaved ice and ice cream. The nonprofit organization, Kiwanis, will also be slinging hot dogs—and, of course, it wouldn’t be a corn festival without kettle corn.

The festival will take place July 30 at Natural Agricultural Center & Hall of Fame located at 630 N 126th St., Bonner Springs, KS 66012.