Catherine Thai, owner of The Parkdale Drink, displays such a canny awareness of the right managerial moves: talking the bartender through a top-notch scotch-washed gin martini, mixing the music herself, graciously replacing a lemoned-up Blanche de Chambly (even stocking Chambly on tap in the first place), and playing the hockey game on mute for a few patrons who flop down in the black and red leather armchair lounge.

Thai should have the wits and pedigree to make the place work. Her mother, Rose Vuong, has run the neighbourhood's Saigon Flower for 20 years, and refers to her family's refusal to sell out to Drake impresario/real estate developer Jeff Stober as “the great wall of China.” With any luck, shrewdness and tenacity are a familial trait. If they are, Thai will put a stop to the food folly that's exiting her kitchen.

It's a bad sign when the chef comes out and tries to talk you out of eating one of his dishes. We should have listened to our guts when, halfway through our dinner, he approached our table brimming with confidence about his risotto, persuading us to substitute it for the jasmine rice on the pork dish we'd ordered. Wherever he found the confidence to bet so big on his risotto, he ought to save it for the poker tables, because the man was bluffing with a carte of watery slop studded with rough-cut, basic button mushrooms; absent are good Arborio rice and a stunning starchiness. Standing so brazenly behind a dish this ill-prepared displays Baldwin-sized balls.

On a happier note, at least the crunchy, greaseless dumplings ($7) are jam-packed with yummy shrimp. But the accompanying side of mayonnaise could be jazzed up with something a trifle more inspiring than five black sesame seeds.

A thin citrus dipping sauce accompanies nicely crisped vegetable tempura ($6) that is, alas, sabotaged by undercooked yams. Iceberg lettuce props up the appetizers the way out-of-town yahoos press their faces against the Citytv window.

Chunks of grilled bell pepper and zucchini are dependable workhorse side veggies, but they're far out-classed in $24 entrees, like thin slices of duck breast cooked to a perfect medium rare on top of a too-salty brown liquid named “szechwan peppercorn sauce.” Next to it is a punishing potato purée piped into a gummy, stale potato skin. The bamboo-steamed “gwoa boa” aren't present on the plate – but then again we wouldn't know if it was. A quick after-dinner Google search yields only the restaurant's menu and an acronym for Guerilla Warfare Operations Area.

It would be cruel to kick the risotto while it's down, but when it arrives beside the seared scallops ($24) and the breaded pork cutlet ($14), the benefit of the doubt evaporates. The rice has had all the bite mushed out of it, while randomly sized nuggets of vegetables float aimlessly among the unbonded grains; promised wild mushrooms turn out to be basic button or cremini. And if that's not HP sauce over the pork, then the chef has expertly replicated the recipe.

The name, massive bar and lounge space all suggest a watering hole meant for outlanders scouring the internet by the Boolean search words “Parkdale” and “drink.” Perhaps those rural jurors swooping in from the 905s will be more lenient and acquit The Parkdale Drink on the charge of impersonating a restaurant. A smart lawyer might even argue that Thai's restaurant is really meant to be more of a lounge, but the kitchen, like a free-standing waterfall in the centre of the room, is incongruous and incriminating. And if the rice won't stick, you must convict. (Johnny Cochrane or Ghostface would make that rhyme.)

*Prices include three courses, drinks, taxes and tip