It was the authentic Neapolitan pizza I went for, but it was the spaghetti carbonara ($16) that I loved and dreamed about for days afterward. A large, glorious bowl of pasta, eggs, pancetta, Parmesan and olive oil in perfect harmony. It sat before me like a golden nest, velvety but not runny, the sauce adhering to the fork as I twisted and spun the noodles around a spoon. No cream in the sauce, just raw eggs cooked by the hot pasta.

According to Costas Eleftheriadis, owner of Napoletana Pizzeria in Mountain View, all the recipes he uses are from his grandmother in Naples. Nonna was a great cook. Carbonara has been fancified since its humble origins. Alan Davidson in "The Oxford Companion to Food" suggests that spaghetti alla carbonara was created in Rome in 1944 with American occupation troops sharing their abundant rations of eggs and bacon with local chefs. Naples isn't Rome, but the way Napoletana makes it, it's about the best carbonara I've had either here or in Italy.