The Wet & The Hot: Drinking Caipirinhas at Paladar Restaurant, Lower East Side

We're into the fourth week of rain in NYC, and to make things worse the first taste of the hot, muggy summer has arrived. Hot and wet and lightning a-flashin' and a-thunderin' on a Thursday evening in the Lower East Side. To cool off (and keep dry) we headed straight to that sexy Latin-Brazilian joint on Ludlow Street called Paladar, where we ordered up the best caipirinhas in New York. (Woah! We hear ya', the ones at Sushi Samba 7 in the West Village rock, too, but Paladar's ... well, they rock HARDER.)

So with hot summer comin' on fast, what do painfully perspiring, ridiculously rained-out kidz like us get up to? Shopping, of course! Time to get some hot warez for the hot months. We're looking for t-shirts, flip flops, and sneakers, so if you've got knowledge of nice product, drop the Massive a line.

So far we've got our eyes set on some tight tees from, Breakbeat Science down there on Orchard Street. Sure, they're hype-wear, but the designs iz dope, brutha! [Dude!!! "Dope"? "Brutha?" Who are you kidding?--IC.]

That reminds us: have you seen that t-shirt that cranky, vaguely political hipster types are wearing these days that says "DICK" and have a line drawing of U.S. Vice-president Cheney's face? It's this year's "Free Winona" t-shirt, only edgier, mean and bitter. Like really strong, really hot espresso on a really muggy evening waiting out a thunderstorm in Lower Manhattan.
—Adrian "Kickin' It Ol' Skool Y'all" Tharani + Shibuya Kid