Don't Forget to Tip Your Guide

Olive Bread from VesuvioOne of my great joys at Tools for Working Wood is steering our visitors to great local places, whether great Mexican food in Sunset Park or worthwhile museums they might have otherwise missed. In that spirit, let me tell you about some of the food shopping I did with my son over the weekend.We built up our fortitude for errands with a falafel at one one of my favorite falafel spots, the original Mamoun's on Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village. According to their website, the restaurant, which was founded in 1971, is "the oldest falafel restaurant in New York and one of the first Middle Eastern establishments in the United States." (This isn't exactly true - Mamoun's may be the oldest falafel shop in NYC, but from the late 19th century until its relocation to make way for the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and what would later become the World Trade Center site, New York had "Little Syria," a vibrant Middle Eastern neighborhood in downtown Manhattan.)When we finished…