| rev:text
| - I'm going to try and be fair, given they've only been open about a month. That said, I cannot fathom the 5 star reviews lavished on The Upton in the short time they've been open. From my perspective, they are very much in the throes of shaking out the new restaurant kinks. I credit the creativeness of the menu, which matches Asian and American flavors in intriguing ways. However, I don't care how good you say the ramen is. I live in the SF Bay Area, and have my pick of some of the best Japanese noodles this side of Tokyo. My guess is that ramen is a new and, somewhat exotic, concept in Arizona, so I'm sure this is why it's perceived as "so amazing".
Anyway, on to the meal at hand. My dinner date and I ordered the burrata starter, which resembled just regular mozzarella without any of the characteristic oozy creaminess inside. Up next was the Mason jar chopped salad, which was essentially a salad parfait that is then tossed table side. Yeah, it's a little gimmicky, but the salad may have been the best thing we ate all night. My date wanted to order the fried chicken, which apparently is the best item on the menu. So good, in fact, that our waiter informed us they were out and it would be 30 minutes before a fresh batch was battered. Deterred, so settled on the wild salmon as a backup and I placed my order for the bistro steak. A few minutes later, we decided that waiting 30 minutes for the fried chicken wasn't so bad and we flagged down the owner to have the order changed. Unfortunately, he did not pass the message to our waiter or the kitchen. This was confirmed when out waiter came around. He then proceeded to inform us it would be far more than 30 minutes, since they have to, inexplicably, close the whole kitchen down to fry the chicken. It seems that they only have one fryer, and the temperature for the chicken is lower than the other fried items on the menu. This seems like a major oversight when planning the kitchen layout. The owner later indicated he was going to buy a 2nd fryer the following week.
So, back to plan B. Anyway, our orders arrived and they were underwhelming. My steak, although properly cooked, was well under-seasoned and fairly boring. The salmon was a tad over cooked, but otherwise fine on its own and pretty good with the accompanying yogurt sauce.
Service was...overly eager. No fewer than 6 times was I asked if my plate could be taken away, when it should have been fairly obvious that I was still working on it.
We decided to pass on dessert and call it an evening. I think what was most disappointing is that the previous restaurant in this space, Le Petit Maison, was so very good. Hopefully the kitchen and staff at the Upton will hit a stride, but they just aren't there yet.
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