Mexican Restaurants in Windsor

• For $12, you get $25 worth of dinner.
• For $8, you get $17 worth of lunch.

La Taquiza Fish Tacos' bilingual salsa slingers prepare marinated meats and seasoned seafood, which can be flame-grilled California-style or battered and fried to Baja-style perfection. The menu's burritos, tacos, and tazons come stuffed with a choice of eight fillings, including carne asada, veggies, shrimp, and grilled octopus. Maws can gnaw on carne asada wrapped in a burrito's passionate embrace ($7.50), or they can clamp down on a pair of Taco Taquiza's tacos loaded with creamy potatoes, salted fried fish, and salsa as smoky as a humidor filled with jerky ($3.50).

Featuring an extensive menu of Mexican favorites and walls festooned with portraits of its namesake painter, this Napa eatery is an artful choice for lunch and dinner. Soft tacos al pastor swaddle dozing marinated pork amid tortilla blankets and pineapple pillows ($5.95), and the chicken mole enchiladas tickle tongues with a spicy signature sauce ($13.95 for two). Of-age libations, including agave margaritas and more than 70 different tequilas, are also available to complement a meal or ice over-wrestled thumbs.

Just a short trip from the epicenter of the organic-food movement, Sonoma Latina Grill compels its guests to travel back to a time when meats and vegetables were grown on small farms and cooked within miles of their origins. The kitchen sources all of its ingredients from local suppliers, whose fertile soils spawn the fresh fruits and veggies needed to forge the restaurant's signature Latin dishes. From breakfast until dinner, chefs stuff tacos and fashion their homemade, preservative-free flour tortillas into meaty burritos or origami sombreros. Sonoma Latina Grill also caters special events such as weddings and large parties.

Since 1979, Casa Mañana Restaurant has served up authentic Mexican and Salvadoran dishes from scratch, making it one of Marin County's oldest family-owned Mexican eateries. All-day breakfasts, such as huevos rancheros and fajitas omelets, arrive at tables located inside the compact dining room or outside on the spacious patio. Entrees spotlight spicy preparations of sirloin and pork, as well as fresh seafood that includes shrimp, crab, red snapper, and calamari. Though well-versed in meats, chefs also happily accommodate vegetarians and unhappily accommodate vegan poltergeists.

When Jim Knudson bit into his first taco during dinner at a friend's house in 1949, he knew he had tasted something special. He added the item?which many diners were pronouncing "tay-co"?to the menu at his restaurant in Grass Valley, California. Determined to introduce the food to as many people as possible, Jim and his wife, Margaret, converted a 16-foot trailer into a kitchen on wheels. They adopted the nickname Jim had earned from one of his longtime customers and drove up to Lake Tahoe, where Jimboy's Tacos found its first permanent home.

Locals, tourists, and even members of the Rat Pack flocked to the tiny taco stand for the uniquely seasoned, parmesan-dusted ground-beef taco, the anchor of a growing menu. The family eventually relocated to Roseville, California, where they set up a small taco stand and began branching out to other locations in and around Sacramento.

Today, Jim Knudson?s daughter Karen, the current president of the company, carries on the legacy of taco obsession at more than 40 locations in northern California and Nevada. Guests who arrive early for breakfast might glimpse the cooks slowly simmering beans, mashing avocados into guacamole, and preparing their signature ground beef with trans-fat-free oil. In addition to classic corn-tortilla tacos, the menu holds the mega-size flour-tortilla El Gordo, golden-fried taquitos, and even a taco burger that fuses Mexican and American culinary traditions.