Since opening in 2023, the vibey, red-tinted Tina’s has taken over the minds and stomachs of Tulsa’s eaters and drinkers. As a neighborhood bar par excellence, they’ve developed a reputation for their limited-but-delicious menu. So when Tina’s dropped their new menu this Wednesday, we woke up on Thursday hungry. The menu screams "summer is coming," a promise we are ready to experience now. Here’s our rundown of the new Tina’s menu.
Potato Chip Tower
Alicia Chesser: What is that on the top of this? Is this lemon zest? God, it’s beautiful.
Matt Carney: Immediately I’m thinking this is the pièce de résistance.
Zack Reeves: It’s got thinly shredded parmesan all over the top. And this is speck, right?
Alicia: It absolutely is.
Matt: The cheese is cut so thin it’s like gossamer. And the lemon zest is very refreshing. I really like this. There are strips of speck inside the chip tower.
Alicia: So it’s not just all piled on top; it’s all the way through.
Matt: When you get a layer of this black pepper crema gluing the whole bite together, that’s really next level.
Alicia: I’m gonna have this problem after this, I can tell, which is that I’m going to go home and have to have lemon zest and finely shredded parmesan cheese every time I have potato chips from now on.
Zack: I mean, if you wanted to recreate this, you could very easily do so. It wouldn’t be that hard. That’s what I like about their menu; the items seem very accessible. They’re not pretentious, but they do have a really, really specific flavor.
Alicia: Yeah. God, these chips with the Cherry Coke are so wonderful.
Zack: I love the detail that the bartender told us, that they only got the Cherry Coke for the chef to drink. I can’t decide if I’m gravitating towards this potato chip tower because it’s good or because of the novelty.
Matt: It’s certainly the most fun and attention-grabbing thing on the menu. But also, it’s a big plate of chips, you know?
Zack: Somebody had to say it.
Matt: We’ve been working on it for a while, and there are still so many chips.
Zack: Three people have barely made a dent in that thing. We’ve been eating it for twenty minutes, and you can only see about 20% of the plate. And you know what? I want more of this black pepper crema.
Pimento Sandwich
Alicia: I once had the pimento dip here. Afterwards, I developed such an insane craving for it that I went to Reasor’s the next day, and I bought their pimento dip. I brought it home and ate it, and it was garbage, but I ate it anyway because I needed the pimento fix.
Zack: I did the exact same thing. Except I loved it; I was like, “this Reasor’s dip is like $3, and I could eat it all with a fork.”
Alicia: Yeah, I kind of felt the same; I just needed an ongoing pimento experience that I didn’t know I needed until Tina’s. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t eating it every day.
Zack: Now that you’re eating it, is it bringing back long repressed cravings?
Alicia: It’s really different from the big ball of dip because it has iceberg lettuce in the sandwich, which cuts the heaviness of the pimento a little bit. It makes it so light and chill to eat.
Zack: Okay, see, for me, I’m getting too much iceberg. Like I feel like I’m eating a 50/50 iceberg and pimento sandwich.
Alicia: It is pretty 50/50, that’s true. But for me, the pimento is so intense that I don’t mind the proportions.
Zack: Iceberg to me always has a little bit of an acrid flavor, especially when you have a big bunch of it all together. It feels like I’m a rabbit taking a big bite.
Alicia: There’s also red onion in here, which is interesting.
Zack: I’m not getting any of that red onion; I can see that it’s there, but I can’t taste it over the intensity of the other things.
Alicia: To me, this sandwich is like a picnic. But I think in general, when it comes to pimento, I’m happier with the big pile of it, more so than I am with it in a sandwich.
Zack: I am in very complete agreement. I don’t see a good argument for making it a sandwich.
Alicia: Well, the reason is that it’s portable. It’s a picnic food now.
Zack: Sure, but I’ve gotten the pimento dip to go, in a little box; that was portable too.
Watermelon Salad
Matt: Oh, wow. That dressing is really nice and uniform, very zesty and then you get the watermelon. It’s delicious.
Zack [speaking in Tree Nut Allergy]: I can tell that I’m missing the walnuts, but this salad is extremely delightful. That dressing is incredible. Oh, there are some big chunks of feta in here. That’s what I was missing. Finally. That’s like finding gold; that’s so nice.
Alicia: All the ideas together in this one work really well.
Matt: I would eat this salad every day.
Smashburger
Matt: I don’t know how we’re going to divvy up this burger.
Alicia: We gotta fight for it.
Matt: I’m gonna fight for it.
Zack: Let’s cut it into little thirds.
Matt: Oh, yeah. This whole thing is kind of like a baseball game meal. You got your hot peppers, you got your pickles, you got your burger. The game just started up.
Zack: It’s like the most luxurious baseball game you’ve ever been to.
Matt: God, this burger is like nothing else. It’s a little work of art. Look at me, I’m just eating chips and fries; I’m eating like my son.
Zack: This thing is just always so good. It’s got some of the best pickles for a burger, too. I don’t usually think much of pickles on a burger, because so many places use these big, basic, drippy, shitty dill pickles. These are so crisp and good.
Alicia: Let the record show that when I took my first bite of the burger, I leaned back in a swoon and stared at the ceiling.
Zack: You leaned back like you were a character in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. There’s a The Shins song playing.
Matt: All the flavors on this burger just meld together so perfectly. I like how the bun holds everything together so properly.
Zack: Yeah. Trying to find a bad thing to say about it is impossible. Even cut into thirds, it holds together remarkably well.
Alicia: Also, a word of appreciation for the very nice thick napkins here. It’s the little things in this place.
Chicken Salad Sandwich
Zack: Oh, this is very good. I’m immediately getting the fennel; I was waiting for something to come up flavor-wise, and there it is. It takes over the whole bite in a way that’s really nicely balanced. It might be a really boring chicken salad without it.
Alicia: This is very special. It’s a wonderful, beautiful, surprising chicken salad without being obnoxious. Can we talk about this perfectly toasted bread? On the pimento too. It’s not too thick either.
Zack: It’s very exact. I think, at the end of the day, that’s the great thing about this place, which is that they are extremely exact.
Matt: Everything’s in the right proportion.
Alicia: That said, I would eat this chicken salad with a spoon out of a plastic tub.
The Consensus
Zack: To me, out of the new stuff, the best thing is the chicken salad sandwich, in terms of overall quality and taste. The potato chip tower is the most fun.
Matt: I think we agree that overall the chicken salad sandwich is the best dish. The potato mountain was fun and very eyecatching.
Alicia: If you’re dealing with the potato chip tower and the burger and the pimento sandwich, you need the salad to cut through with a little complexity. It does that really nicely. So I’m very keen on the watermelon salad as my number one.
Zack: I’m surprised it’s not the pimento.
Alicia: Oh, I’m going to continue having a relationship with the pimento sandwich. It doesn’t need to be my number one today.
Matt: The potato chip tower is kind of like the Hollywood star who can’t act. It’s out front, it’s got a lot of attention, it’s got good abs. But then halfway through it’s like, oh dear.
Zack: Glen Powell, maybe.
Alicia: Right. And now you’ve got sort of a gloppy situation.
Zack: Sure. But I will say, I’m happy about it. I’m happy to go through the glop. Because the glop is where the flavor is.
Alicia: Please don’t say that sentence ever again.
Zack: Okay, Alicia is currently yelling “woo!” about the banana pepper on the side of the potato tower; she just took a big bite of that pepper.
Alicia: It’s revolutionized my experience of the potato tower. Just as I begin to lose interest in Glen Powell… I remember that he can act! And here’s the scene you’ve been waiting for. He just needed a hot pepper.
Matt: The things we really demolished were the chicken salad and the burger. I’m not really a pimento guy; this pimento sandwich was fine, but I just don’t generally do it.
Zack: Now, Matt, here’s the question. Fries or chips?
Matt: Like asking me to choose between my kids.
Alicia: The challenging thing is that the fries are so perfect when they’re hot, but when they cool off, they’re not as perfect. Whereas the chips, they’re keeping their staying power.
Look out for Mitch Gilliam’s upcoming continuation of his Burger Tour of Tulsa, which will include Tina’s veggie burger.
The Pickup's reviews are published with support from The Online Journalism Project.
