Peter Carbonara joined the CNN.com chat room by telephone and CNN provided a typist.

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They break down into pieces that thicken the dish much like an egg does in a carbonara.

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Customers know what they want when they review spaghetti carbonara for Zagat.

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Spaghetti carbonara, say, and sliced mangoes with lime zest for dessert.

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Everyone will tell you that spaghetti alla carbonara is essential to any visit to Rome, and Pipero al Rex stakes claim to serving some of the very best.

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One thousand Aramark chefs have been cooking up vats of pasta and cauldrons of carbonara sauce -- and, perhaps inevitably, those pans of meatloaf of indeterminate color, that seem to be the staple of large-scale food service from school cafeterias to military mess halls.

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