Sea monster chic at Boston College, UNC REX Healthcare’s summer kickoff party, sports food goes minimalist in L.A., time traveling ice cream and more.

In this edition of Heart of Foodservice, FSD’s ongoing series on good food, awesome people, stealable ideas and feel-good bites of the foodservice world, we’re taking stock of summer happenings that are making us smile.

When food trends swing so far one way, sometimes it’s only a matter of time before the pendulum swings back the other way, and hard. The food found in sporting arenas isn’t usually described as “understated,” “restrained” or “elegant.” When a sports menu doesn’t feature absurdist eats like nachos within a pork belly inside cotton candy in a Bloody Mary, it actually stands out. Levy, the foodservice provider at L.A.’s Intuit Dome, appears to have gone counterculture with a new lineup of clean, simple items, like the Clipper Dog (pictured), salty soft pretzels, classic popcorn and sleek sushi dogs.

When Boston College Dining Services partnered with Atlantic Sea Farms, a sustainability focused, women-run kelp company, they celebrated with Under the Sea Showdown, an event that featured culinary deep dives into what BC chefs can do with seaweed, from kelp meatballs to kelp sea-chi (kimchi) to seaweed pizza, kelp crab cakes and Kelp Wellington, which turned out “beautiful,” according to Campus Executive Chef Phyllis M. Kaplowitz. “People really got into it, and dressed as sea monsters.”

Director and Executive Chef at UNC REX Healthcare Ryan Conklin, CEC, has a motto when it comes to building an amazing workplace culture: “It’s not ‘Set it and forget it.’ It needs to always be tended to and evolving.” On the first day of summer, the whole team at REX got to have some fun with the Summer Kickoff Party, complete with tropical vibes.

It’s a time-traveling summer for Clementine’s Naughty & Nice Ice Cream, a St. Louis-based microcreamery, as they offer four new limited-edition flavors for the 120th anniversary of the World’s Fair in St. Louis. Back in 1904, the fair brought us cotton candy (called “fairy floss” at the time) and introduced the banana split as a gloopy, glorious part of Americana. Clementine’s collaborated with the Missouri History Museum on the flavors: Banana Split, Meet Me in St. Louis, Fairy Floss and Vegan Waffle Cone-a-Copia. “The ice cream cone was also widely popularized at the fair, so we have big ice cream origins in St. Louis to pay tribute to,” said Tamara Keef, founder and flavor temptress of Clementine’s.

Halo-Halo, made up of crushed ice, coconut milk and fresh fruit, made its debut at Southern Oregon University, created by Cura Hospitality Chef/Baker Marc Supelana-Mix. It was part of an Asian-American-Pacific Islander chef expo, which also featured kalua pork, corned beef, egg fried rice, pancit bihon and egg tarts.