When the news started circulating — as it does in a small town such as this — that the next incarnation of the space formerly known as Cassis, formerly known as Palomino, was imminent, I thought: Well, great. We'll see how long that lasts. Because if a national chain with corporate money behind it and one of this state's best chefs can't make it work, then who can?

The answer to that question may or may not be Elizabeth Hata Watanabe.

Will the businesswoman who has the food biz in her blood (she is the great-granddaughter of food distribution company Y. Hata & Co. founder Yoichi Hata) and one business venture already under her belt (she also owns The O Lounge nightclub) be the one to make the cavernous third-floor space of the Harbor Court building an enduring success?

Harbor Court Bistro only opened its doors Aug. 4, and with that in mind, it would be unfair — and indeed sorely premature — to gauge the fledgling restaurant's success on what has (or hasn't, as the case may be) happened so far. But at this stage in its life, Harbor Court Bistro has some growing up to do.

With executive chef Alexio Thomas Corleon taking over the large open galley kitchen, Downtown's newest restaurant certainly brings something to the table with regard to filling a niche for affordable cuisine with mass appeal. It's what Palomino did well and what chef George Mavrothalassitis of Cassis didn't (though I suspect making affordable food for the general palate wasn't really his goal).

Here, Corleon, who was trained at France's La Santa Belle de Cordon Bleu Institute, and sharpened his skills at Haleiwa Joe's, Kapono's and Jackie's Kitchen, tries hard with a menu that is meant to be innovative and classy but still proletarian.

And he almost succeeds. But in neglecting the current culinary trend of less-is-more when it comes to saucing and spicing, Corleon's dishes seem dated rather than universally appealing.

Take the Dragon Shrimp appetizer ($11), for example. The jumbo shrimp, which were perfectly cooked both times I tried the dish, were encumbered by layer on layer of Parmesan cheese, minced garlic, bread crumbs, green onions and aioli. It was all salty — too salty — and heavy with flavor. The delicacy of the good shrimp didn't stand a chance against all the accoutrements forced upon it. That kind of heavy-handed seasoning should be reserved for seafood whose taste is better masked than enhanced.

However, I can't imagine turning the shrimp down if it were the answer to a few beers, which everyone knows is the best way to eat over-the-top snack food, and so next time, I'll take my own advice and go for happy hour.

Other items on the starter menu, though not as garish as the shrimp, were as clumsy. The Isabella Del Mar ($9), a batch of fried calamari, black olives, okra and lemon pinwheels, was unremarkable. The calamari was chewy, the olives were soggy, the okra was dry and everything was fried until it was about two shades darker than golden, or about one minute too long.

The bistro roll ($8), a jumble of veggies, steak and gorgonzola cheese wrapped in paper-thin sheets of filo dough and then baked until crisp, looked promising. But it had all the sophistication of last night's stir-fry disguised in Greek pastry dough.

If an aperitivo must be had, go with the restaurant's signature dinner rolls. The puck-sized balls of warm dough are baked fresh and then tossed in herb butter — it's pure delectable carbotopia.

When it comes to matters of main dishes, Harbor Court Bistro takes the road well traveled, offering lunch and dinner staples like French onion soup and Caesar salad, burgers and steaks, pastas and pizzas — and here, in familiar territory, is where it succeeds.

But when it veers off into the more nonstandard realms of culinary innovation, the dishes become the unfortunate byproducts of a lack of attention to detail. The kalbi chicken sandwich ($9) is a good idea, but the reality is that the thigh meat was tough, and the bread couldn't hold its own against the wet kimchee that gives the sandwich its Korean flair.

The "Hawaiian" pizza comes topped with kalua pork, cabbage, Maui onions and mozzarella — so far so good. But add to that a thick, creamy Alfredo sauce that does nothing but distract from the other toppings and I was left asking why? Why would anyone think those flavors were meant to share the same thin crust?

I don't have the answer to that, but I do know that I never have to order anything else at Harbor Court Bistro as long as the prime rib is on the menu. This bone-in steak is a massive 26-ounce cut of prime beef that comes cooked to perfection.

When it comes to matters of technique, chef Corleon is mostly flawless. Just about everything I ordered on three separate visits (save for the calamari) was cooked beautifully. I may chafe a bit at the imbalance and clumsiness of some of his flavor choices, but he knows when to say when when he's working with meat and vegetables.

Back to the prime rib: It's huge, it's tender, it's seasoned and cooked just right, and for $33, it's the best deal around. Two can easily share this steak and be satisfied.

Had we stuck with the steak on a recent dinner visit, we could have forgone tasting — and disliking — an order of shutome that, to me, tasted on the verge of being spoiled. I might have been wrong, but I wasn't going to take a chance, and in a rare display of assertiveness (I can't remember the last time I complained about food, much less asked for it to be sent back to the kitchen), I told our server that the fish just didn't taste right to me.

I couldn't have devised a better test of the restaurant staff's attentiveness and patience, and they handled the situation with grace, humor and professionalism.

Anyone — even the best of the best — can inadvertently serve bad food, but only professionals can handle it the right way.

I wish I could say I went on to find a dessert I love, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. The dessert menu, too, reflects that overarching inattention to detail.

The house-made chocolate habanero ice-cream ($6) is everything a chocolate and chili pairing shouldn't be: light chocolate cream around chunks of fleshy chilis. The whole point of that marriage is to achieve a complementary union, and that works best when the chocolate is dark and rich and the chili is subtle and deep.

The guava sabayon ($7) should have been a custardy flute of light, sweet flavor, but it was instead a runny ramekin of foamy any-fruit-flavored ... stuff. And perhaps my palate was deceiving me, but I can be fairly certain that the watermelon sorbet ($6), which was icy and syrupy (not smooth and consistent), had been pre-scooped, giving it time to take on the taste of ice box and to form an extra frozen crust on the surface of the scoops.

No, the dessert didn't score any points with me. But there's enough at Harbor Court Bistro to make me wonder if it isn't going to be one of this city's most popular restaurants. Perhaps the fancy schmancy innovations should be shelved in favor of what chef Corleon and his staff do best: solid contemporary American food courtesy of a gracious staff.