<p>While the turkey Monte Crista panini wasn't the Mouth's favorite, the sweet potato fries were pleasingly crunchy, sweet and amply spiced.</p>

If you are as old as I am, you can probably still remember when Warrenton had no Fred Meyer, that the space now filled by Ross was a Thriftway and that what is now Doogers used to be a Dennys. Warrenton has grown and changed tremendously over the last few decades and is now a hub of local commerce Costco, anyone? Overall, though, Warrenton doesnt seem to have nearly the number of restaurants that its neighbors Astoria and Seaside seem to have, so I was pleased when I learned that Krista Bingham and David Yuill, owners of the Serendipity Caffe in downtown Warrenton, which I reviewed favorably earlier this year, were opening a second restaurant near Staples in the Warrenton Highlands shopping center.

Bingham and Yuill have done an impressive job making what could seem like a very corporate strip mall storefront into a sort of cool, urban-industrial hang-out. The ceilings are expansive, creative artwork hangs everywhere, and a cozy couch is prime for lounging while watching local musicians play in the evenings.

I began my recent visit with some appetizers. First up, the crazy hot chicken wings served with traditional bleu cheese dip. I actually appreciated that the wings were not, in fact, insanely spicy as specified, but seemingly flavored with the Franks Red Hot sauce, a common and comfortable choice. The wings were average, nothing outstanding or unusual, but still tasty. Similarly tasty were breaded and fried dill pickle chips, a relatively new culinary craze, which is exactly as it sounds: tangy dill pickle chips, breaded and fried until crisp, and served with peppercorn ranch. I have never sampled these before, at Uptown or anywhere else, but I found them interesting; I dont know that I would ever order them again, but I can see why theyre popular.

I sampled next the turkey Monte Crista, a Panini with turkey, ham, cheddar and Dijon cranberry sauce, which I sadly found a bit disappointing. Though I cannot speculate as to how the turkey was prepared or sliced, it did not seem to have the taste or texture of turkey that had been freshly prepared and sliced with a deli slicer, which would have been my preference. The Dijon cranberry sauce resembled salad dressing in consistency and was too tangy for my liking, plus the large quantity of it made the sandwich rather messy. Finally, I thought cheddar too assertive a cheese next to the other flavors in the sandwich, and rather than soft and melted, the consistency was hard and looked as though it had melted but sat long enough for it to congeal. I selected sweet potato fries as a side, and I found those very appetizing, crunchy, sweet and amply spiced.

I was equally disappointed in the Uptown cheese steak, which was described on the menu as thinly sliced prime rib with sautéed mushrooms, fried onions, bell peppers and Swiss cheese. Though the prime rib was indeed thinly sliced, it lacked flavor and was overly done, even crispy in spots. The onions and peppers had decent flavor, but the mushrooms seemed cooked improperly and were spongy and watery. One important step in sautéing mushrooms is to first ensure that theyre very dry, otherwise the water will create a barrier between the mushrooms and butter or olive oil they should ideally be cooked in, and the finished mushrooms, instead of being brown and having absorbed the butter or oil, will be soft and watery. Overall the sandwich lacked the traditional, punchy flavor I would expect in a Philly, and the texture of the mushrooms was off-putting.

I returned to the Uptown Café a second occasion and this time sampled the fish tacos, two soft taco shells filled with cod, cabbage, salsa, cheese, lime juice and house sauce. I was surprised to find the cod battered and fried and served in one large piece in each shell, and the shells themselves seemed to have been baked after being stuffed and were hard and chewy. I could not discern between flavors in the house sauce and salsa, but overall the mixture was creamy and a little sweet, which I thought was odd. The tacos were more like wraps than tacos, and I would not say that the overall flavor suggested anything Mexican or southwestern, as I would expect when eating tacos of any kind.

The Uptown Café has been open for a few months now, and I do believe that all new restaurants deserve ample time to get on their feet. Even in the best circumstances, it can take a restaurant several weeks or even months to get the menu right, to ensure that the food is cooked to a measurable, consistent standard, and to train servers to provide quality service. I have eaten at the Serendipity in Warrenton on many occasions and have always had a good experience, and I like the atmosphere the owners are trying to create in their new space, so I hope that in the coming months they can improve the food to match the standard set by Serendipity.