Three words: maracuya, lulo and guayaba.

Those aren’t your average fruit juices, and the originality of Leños & Carbón Latin Cuisine doesn’t stop there.

The small restaurant off Kingston Pike near Lovell Road just opened at the start of June, but the growing pains expected from new businesses were nowhere to be found when I stopped in Sunday afternoon.

My dining companions and I were daunted by the lengthy beverage list, most of which we couldn’t pronounce, and decided to buy three juices to sample. The “glasses” of juice that we ordered were served in pitchers along with three soda fountain glasses filled with ice.

The juice was freshly blended in your choice of milk or water and had a thick consistency more similar to a smoothie than to store-bought juices.

Delighted by the way our early dinner was going so far, we ordered an appetizer of platano maduro asado, grilled sweet plantains layered in long strips topped with melted mozzarella cheese and guava slices.

After a taste of each new dish, my friends and I stopped to lean back and stare at each other and then at the heavens with looks that said it all. We left our manners behind entirely to scrape our plates and slurp down our juice to savor every bit of flavor.

When it came time to choose an entrée, one of my companions asked the server if they had vegetarian options. The server seemed stumped and laughed, saying their rice and beans were good.

Based on that exchange, the outlook for their vegetarian meals wasn’t good, but that small gray cloud was blown away when our server brought my meat-adverse friend a plate of black beans, rice, plantains and a heap of grilled vegetables.

A woman from the kitchen peeked out at our table to ask my friend if her plate had enough vegetables, adding that she had prepared them herself.

My other dinner date ordered the mini bandeja paisa, which still included enough food for two. The dish contained a little of everything: a choice of ground beef or steak and Columbian sausage or blood sausage, pork skin, fried egg, sweet plantain, avocado, arepa (corn cake), and of course — rice and beans.

I chose the picadillo dish of ground beef marinated in Cuban spices served with rice, beans and sweet plantain.

Despite our grand plans for dessert and a milk or dark chocolate from the hot beverages list, my companions and I left Leños and Carbón Latin Cuisine stuffed and satisfied with plenty of reasons to return.