text: I am going to try and be fair given they have only been open about a month That said I cannot fathom the star reviews lavished on The Upton in the short time they have 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 do not 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 am sure this is why it is perceived as so amazing nnAnyway 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 is 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 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 minutes for the fried chicken was not 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 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 nd fryer the following weeknnSo back to plan B Anyway our orders arrived and they were underwhelming My steak although properly cooked was well underseasoned and fairly boring The salmon was a tad over cooked but otherwise fine on its own and pretty good with the accompanying yogurt saucennService wasoverly eager No fewer than times was I asked if my plate could be taken away when it should have been fairly obvious that I was still working on itnnWe 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 are not there yet