Anar Rodriguez brought two bags of cacao -- the real source of true chocolate flavor -- out from her restaurant to show the difference between raw and roasted beans.

The raw beans had their greenish shells still on, while the roasted beans were dark, every nut peeled by Rodriguez's own hands. Try one, she said, the anti-oxidant properties are incredible. She eats 20 of the bittersweet roasted beans a day.

Crumbling one between her fingers, she murmured, "purple chocolate." Like no chocolate you've had before, she said. She uses the roasted, peeled cacao to make one of her fresh juices -- yes, there is such a thing as chocolate juice. It's milky, spicy and tastes of what fresh chocolate must taste like.

She sells these juices, or refrescos, and much more, at Xiloa (pronounced Hee-low-ah), a restaurant on Ninth Street that offers "a taste of the tropics, a twist of the Southwest." Everything is fresh, and good for you too, she says.

Rodriguez, whose first name means pomegranate in the dialect of her native Nicaragua, opened Xiloa in September and has created a loyal clientele without paying for any advertising. Word of mouth has been all she's needed to keep the small, colorful place going.

"I've been doing juices for 23 years," she said. She is coy when it comes to her age, admitting only she's in her mid-40s, though her energy makes you doubt she's out of her thirties (must be those cacao beans.) "I believe in the power of juice."

Xiloa is the name of a lagoon in Nicaragua where Rodriguez sold juices with her family. She spent a lot of time in her youth surrounded by two things: healing, and food. There is a natural link between the two in her indigenous heritage. Her mother was a medicine woman who ran a cafe from the front of her house and a clinic from the back. There was no such thing as four to five servings of fruits and veggies, she said. Her mother believed in eating no less than 14, which is a big part of why Rodriguez is now a vegetarian.

Vegetarian and vegan food is all over the menu at Xiloa -- rather than make dishes vegetarian friendly by taking away the meat, she said, you add meat to your dishes at her restaurant. Shrimp, chicken, beef, and pork cracklings are a few such options for dishes such as Indian tacos and nacatmales, which consist of meat covered in a cornmeal masa with raisins and spices and wrapped in a banana leaf, steamed and topped with a mild sauce.

"I'm just serving homemade food like my mother used to make," she said. Her mother made meals only with fresh food, so Rodriguez follows suit. Nothing is canned -- which is why she spends a lot of her time gathering her ingredients from local farmers and a supplier of Latin American foods in Charlotte.

She has trained her staff to make the dishes in the traditional manner, but she makes the 12 salsas used in many of the dishes herself. One mushroom specialty, arazhongar, is made with 58 different ingredients.

Many dishes have a Southwest influence, something Rodriguez fell in love with when she lived in Arizona and New Mexico. She has done everything from wash dishes to manage restaurants, and now that she owns one she hopes to bring it to the community.

"I want to be able to adopt this city through this service," she said. Fresh food that is good for you is what she hopes to provide Durham. After asking people on Ninth Street what they want to eat more of in the months before opening Xiloa, she learned Durhamites want this as well.

It was the unique menu that attracted Joshua Davis to Xiloa. He enjoys the mofongo, a cup of fried ripe plantains filled with a choice of meat, and a cup of rice with olives and capers.

"That's what attracted me to this place -- the food was unusual," he said.

The menu varies according to what's in season, in keeping with the promise that the food is as fresh as possible. Right now, in addition to her usual watermelon, tamarind, cantaloupe and cacao juices, others such as guava, guabana, passion fruit, pitalla and hibiscus are fresh and on ice, waiting to be sucked up through a straw from a cold glass.

"I sell flavor," she said, not just food.