I was prepared to hate Malo. All 'Hounds were, after hearing recent reviews of how terrible the service was or how inauthetic the cuisine was and all sorts of other stuff. At the end of the day, there I was, four margraritas ahead of everyone else, and I didn't care. Take your poor service and your inauthentic Mexican, and you know what, I had a great effin' time.

I arrived a little early, with the intent to write a diary of the ongoing evening. But I had so much fun with just knocking back the Oro Azul margaritas and the sprite-filled sangrias that I remembered that sometimes people don't go to restaurants for the food. Sometimes they go for the company.

This evening I was lucky enough to be part of the Chowhound event which allowed me to meet up with other posters like Normal and Kris P and Katkoupai and Dommy and so on that at the end of the day, who cares that cheddar was sprinkled on the taco? Ultimately, I gotta say, that ground beef taco tasted just like a Big Mac. Now, I haven't been to McDonalds in over a decade, but if I had to guess what a Big Mac tasted like, it would that wonderfully comfortable mixture of crunchy texture and sour pickle combined with that tasty ground beef.

I really wish I took pics of the food, but in the end, what are you gonna do? Your satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.

Ultimately, sometimes you have to let go of the fact that the food is inauthentic. Sometimes you have to resign yourself to the idea that it isn't traditional. Who cares? You're there to have a good time and the origin-be-damned.

I met a lot of wonderful fellow posters who heretofore were merely blips on my binary screen. Imagine that: prior to today this person was merely an idea, a username, a handle who you might not have been even sure was male or female. (I'm male, by the way. My name is Ron; it's a masculine name, it comes from Ronald, a derivative of the Scottish "Reginald" which means King in Latin.)

But give it one fell cheddar-filled crispy taco swoop and all of sudden a person becomes real. Now, Chowhound is no longer idea, but a connection in which strangers engage in a sense of discovery, in a sense of learning.

Sure, I head a few drinks in me, but I can still tell the difference between a real person and an imaginary one, and I can certainly appreciate the type of person that ventures out to Silver Lake for a meetup. There is a noise around me, and it is the chatter of real people, of real tastes swallowing and imbibing in the real Los Angeles. Dommy was there to give me a real sense of Yucatecan cuisine, Kris P Pata and Normal Garciaparra was there to rep the Pinoys, and Katkoupai was there to highlight the importance of Persian cuisine in LA (and to make sure I arrived home safely).

This is your town, Chowhounds, swallow it whole.