"You wanna Pita this?"

From a distance, it almost looks like a shiny, metallic birthday present: one delivered to the western end of University Avenue last week, and set down next to the Studley gymnasium.

Dalhousie Food Services certainly hopes that the campus community likes what they find inside.

“We’re pretty excited about it,” says Derrick Hines, director of Dalhousie Food Services. “Dal is the first Canadian university to have a mobile food truck, and we’re eager to be open for business.”

The truck’s main host is My Three Cousins, a new dining option on campus featuring Turkish, Greek and Lebanese dishes for students and staff on the go. Last week, the restaurant hosted a small sampling event, serving up a few of its main dishes: the 'cousin' (a halal dog on pita), the beef kebob, the chorizo sausage pita and a side-dish of hummus.

Other menu items will include a platter dish, falafels, and Greek fries, which are topped with lemon, feta, garlic sauce, spices and Tzatziki sauce for dipping. My Three Cousins will start serving customers this week, gradually expanding its menu day-by-day until it’s fully operational. (Right now, the truck is running off of its propane generator, but that’s only temporary until a proper power source gets installed this fall.)

Locally sourced, internationally inspired

Greg McGuire is one of the My Three Cousins’ chefs, sporting a black chef’s uniform with the cheeky slogan, “You wanna Pita this?” on the back.

“This is a brand new menu for me, but it’s really exciting food,” he says, having been brought to Dalhousie  specifically to help run the food truck. “This cuisine is great to work with. It’s so flavorful, and we’re using all local ingredients. People can come and get a rich, flavorful meal when they’re on the go.”

“We’ve brought this to campus in response to survey results from students, who indicated that they were looking for more variety, particularly ethnic foods,” adds Mr. Hines. “The name comes from my own experience going to middle eastern restaurants and finding that they always seemed to know their customers like family. And we wanted something that recognized the bringing together of the three cultures—Turkish, Lebanese and Greek. It just seemed to fit.”

While the food truck will feature the My Three Cousins menu when it’s parked at its home base by the Studley gym, the vehicle—which contains a fully-featured kitchen inside with sinks, commercial ovens, a preparatory fridge and more—will be able to switch it out for other dining options when it’s on the move (for example, serving hamburgers and hotdogs at Dal sporting events). Its colourful design is courtesy of Dalhousie’s Creative Services team.