Why wait for Cinco de Mayo to eat nachos and drink cervezas?

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Cinco de Mayo is coming, and with it some serious elbow-bending across the land. But let's face it: Revelers marking this most American of festivities with cervezas and nachos aren't above stuffing themselves south-of-the-border-style the other 364 days of the year.

How much do we love Mexican food? This much: The salsa sits in your fridge right next to the Heinz ketchup, and the tortilla chips are alongside the Lay's. I'm also betting there's a Mexican restaurant — or six — in your neighborhood.

Have a favorite? Come share it on my blog (www.seattletimes.com/allyoucaneat) where we'll chat more about the places that warm mi corazon — for cheap!

Taqueria La Estacion

14820 Ambaum Blvd. S.W., Burien; 206-439-3944. Hours: 9 a.m.-10 p.m. daily

The boss works the register, a pastry case crammed with Mexican sweets at hand, a photo-lit menu board overhead, his smile a beacon of warmth as he persuades a grinning gringa to try the pollo al carbon. "We barbecue it out back." Si, señor, I say, taking him up on his suggestion by pairing that tender half-chicken ($7.99) with a Bohemia beer ($1!) and a bowl of deeply lamb-scented broth ($1.30). It's Friday night in Burien where they're lining up three-deep to order taqueria classics plus house specials like parrillada — a $23.99 platter for two (though it'll feed more) heaped with grilled meats and vegetables, plus melted cheese. At a corner booth, a customer serenades the crowd with a sorrowful folk song, accompanied by a strolling minstrel in a cowboy hat and battered guitar. Families and friends fill the room with laughter, babies cry and I grab a warm tortilla and sing along.

Taqueria La Fondita

Lynnwood: 20629 Highway 99; 425-672-4209. Hours: 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 8 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays.

White Center: 9811 15th Ave. S.W., Seattle; 206-551-0529. Hours: 10 a.m.-11 p.m.

When word got out that White Center's favorite taco truck was opening an outlet in a former Lynnwood Taco Bell, I was all over it (soft tacos carnitas! oozy mulitas! washed back with horchata!). Well, now it's all over me, seeing that the Lynnwood store has become a regular pit-stop where my kid and I watch Mexican soap operas and hit the condiment counter for spicy cabbage slaw to nibble while we wait. We show up for snacks (a single lengua-filled taco for me, $1.10, and a half-dozen crisp beef-filled taquitos rancheros for the boy, $7.99); or our pull-out-the-stops treat, mojarra frita (a whole tilapia, crisped on the bone, with fries and a salad, $10.25). Either way, this is some filling station. Menudo? Mañana.

La Carta de Oaxaca

5431 Ballard Ave. N.W., Seattle; 206-782-8722

Hours: lunch 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays; dinner 5-11 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 5-midnight Fridays-Saturdays.

You can drink mescal or a margarita at the little bar in back. Or pass the time — and the lightest tortilla chips imaginable — at the big communal table. But you'll find me at home at a counter seat, mesmerized by a clutch of cooks kneading and grilling tortillas, ladling the most delicate of albondigas soups, stirring stockpots vibrant with salsas, frying eggs to gild enchiladas and generally making this bright Ballard spot a mecca for Mexican food fanatics. The pause that refreshes comes in a hefty "cocktel" glass — a mix of bay shrimp sparked with chiles and cilantro. A banana leaf unfurls to expose a masa pancake steamed with shards of chicken or pork and the black-chile mole that flavors that tamal also appears as a chocolate-hued river of sweet goodness as the specialty of the house — Mole Negro Oaxaqueno.

Rancho Bravo Tacos

Wallingford: 211 N.E. 45th St., Seattle (no phone). Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays, 11 a.m.-3 a.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sundays. Cash only.

Capitol Hill: 1001 E. Pine St., Seattle (no phone — yet). Hours: 10:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays, 10:30 a.m.-3 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Cash only (credit cards in the offing).

"Bravo!" rang the shouts last month after Freddy Rivas opened the doors to a shuttered KFC, having transformed that fast-foodery into a bastion of chubby burritos and superior soft tacos. Say hola to the stationary adjunct of his Wallingford trailer — parked discreetly between a doughnut (Winchell's) and a Deluxe (Dick's). Fans of that 2-year-old truck-stop temptation know where to look for the freshest Mexicana. Park your buns at a picnic table under the big tent or order takeout, but be sure to avail yourself of what some might not-so-arguably call the best meat on a bun in town: a pillow-soft $4 torta.

P.S.: Greenwood and West Seattle Bravos coming soon!

Nancy Leson: 206-464-8838 or nleson@seattletimes.com.

To read her blog, go to www.seattletimes.com/allyoucaneat