See star chef play the field — with high-end sports bar

School's out, the carpools and errands are accomplished and the music lesson completed. My daughter and I arrive at Sport, Fisher Plaza's new high-tech sports-bar-cum-restaurant, where we have planned a rendezvous with dad. We are both wide-eyed to find a long room full of enormous TV screens, visible from every conceivable angle inside the restaurant.

Just imagine our excitement when we are led to a booth equipped with our very own personal flat-screen TV — a video jukebox for the 21st century.

While my daughter fiddles with the channel button, I spy a cocktail with my name on it: Desperate Housewife. Pink drink in hand, I eavesdrop on the two presumed jocks in the booth behind me. They are trading tips for making potstickers and gnocchi. As I wonder whether I'd feel more or less desperate married to one of them, my husband appears. He has no trouble spotting us: We have the only screen in the room tuned to "Lizzie McGuire."

Fast forward to a subsequent visit: The NCAA's March Madness is in full-court press and, with no minors in tow, we score a booth in the bar. There we can watch the game of our choice on the small screen or view four different hoop fests at once on quadruple screens hanging above the bar.

For many of Sport's clientele, this is their idea of bliss. Put up enough TV screens (48 in this case) and they will come. Put a plate in front of them and they will eat, possibly never even looking down at their plates, which could be why more than half the menu here is food you pick up and eat with your hands: onion rings and nachos, five flavors of wings, a dozen pizzas, fish and chips, hot and cold sandwiches and, of course, burgers. For those willing to grapple with knife, fork or spoon, there are also salads, chowder, chili, grilled salmon and steaks.

Sounds like plain and simple pub grub, but Sport's owner and head coach is chef John Howie, who sets the bar just as high for Sport as he does for his fine-dining franchise, Seastar in Bellevue.

The kitchen makes few errors. Try the wings ($9.95), meaty little drummettes offered in styles ranging from spicy Buffalo to smoky honey BBQ. I'm partial to the Asian variations, either marinated in Chinese barbecue sauce or redolent of lemongrass and Thai curry. A nasal-clearing hot mustard sauce bolsters the former; sweet Thai chili sauce complements the latter.

Chicken bits ($7.95), nubbins of boneless white meat sauced like wings, are the way to go if you don't like greasy fingers, but you'll need a fork.

Pizzas are built on a crust so thin they might almost be Atkins-approved. Sensibly the kitchen goes for quality, not quantity when topping these fragile 8-inch or 12-inch discs. Sauce, mozzarella and toppings — like spicy fennel sausage and thinly sliced cremini mushrooms ($6.95/$9.50) — are judiciously applied.

There's nothing delicate about the deli sandwiches made with a half-pound of meat and inch-thick slices of bread. The corned beef for the Reuben and the hot pastrami (both $11.95) were thinly sliced and a little too lean for my taste. "Sport Spread" pinch-hits for Thousand Island dressing in the Reuben. The aioli-like sauce studded with chopped pickle is very good but allotted sparingly.

The pastrami arrived on white bread. They ran out of rye, explained the waiter, but only after we asked. Did he think we wouldn't notice?

When the crowd here gets thirsty, they are unlikely to ask for the wine list; cocktails, beer or wines by the glass are more the norm. But the list, compiled by Seastar's sommelier, Erik Liedholm, and divided into "home" team (domestic wines) and "visitors" (imports), is too tempting to ignore.

To go with our steak and cheeseburger we choose a Canoe Ridge cabernet ($27). When that wine can't be found, the server suggests a substitute for the same price, which is fine with us.

We turn to our salads: mixed greens topped with crunchy frizzled onions ($4.95 half/$8.95 whole) and a lovely Italian chop chop ($8.50 half/$12.95 whole) fragrant with herbs, Parmesan and slivers of Armandino Batali's Salumi salami, a classy touch somewhat undermined by the inclusion of canned black olives.

But, still no wine. A most apologetic manager offers us a third alternative for the same price. Later I learn the wine we ended up with cost twice as much as the one we'd originally ordered — a handsome gesture.

The Beresan cabernet is a fine match for the 22-ounce garlic-and-herb-rubbed T-bone steak ($24.95), masterfully grilled to medium rare. The Kobe beef cheeseburger ($9.95) not only seems puny in contrast, it is puny. It might have been a Dick's deluxe. Nothing wrong with that, but we're paying for Kobe beef.

Next time I'll heed the fine print on the menu: "Where's the beef? Add another 6-ounce patty for $4 more."

The front-of-the-house staff fumbles more than the kitchen. Some seem just up from the minors, but all are upbeat and attentive. Give them time; Sport is barely 2 months old, but it's got that championship feeling.

Providence Cicero: providencecicero@aol.com