Joe’s Pizza in downtown Santa Monica

Looking as if it has been holding down the

location since Taxi Driver was in first run.

A half a dozen sliced pizzas are on display,

the breadth of truck tires but almost microscopically thin,

the movement from the oven is a smooth one, a balletic display of grace.

Their pizza ballasted with sweetish tomato sauce and annealed with a micro thin cincture of cheese, is as authentically New York City

as the smell of the West Fourth subway station in mid-August.

- Pulitzer-winning food critic Jonathan Gold