Tin Star

I had gone to Glenpool with Jerri Ann and talked her into trying Tin Star on Riverside Drive. I have been eating over here for a while but this was a new spot for her and she loves Mexican so it was a good choice. They have a lot of variety to their menu with soups, salads and fajitas as well as some unusual choices like Chicken Chipotle Scallopini, Chicken Fried Steak, and Fire-Grilled Salmon. My favorite is the Taco Plate where you can choose from a variety of beef, pork, chicken and fish tacos to go with rice and beans. We both opted for the Executive, grilled steak fajita meat with crispy onion strings and big bleu cheese crumbles. This was a big hit!!! There is so much meat and cheese on the tacos it is hard to eat this with your hands so a fork does nicely and that way you don't drop a single delicious bite. The flour tortillas as nice and soft and have a good dough flavor and do are thick enough to hold this together without being chewy, very good.

We did the Two Taco Plates and Jerri Ann chose a Fish Taco with breaded and fried white fish as her other choice. Tempura battered shrimp is the other option and has nice big shrimp that are well seasoned and well-cooked, not chewy. These come topped with chipotle sauce that is smoky with just a little spice, and cole slaw. Jerri Ann thought the white fish was OK but she thought they would be grilled not battered, she just didn't read the menu closely and thought she might try something different the next time. I like the shrimp version and usually have that as my second choice but decided to do something different and had the Crispy Buffalo Chicken version that comes with a tangy hot sauce, avocado, and bleu cheese crumbles (clearly I am in a very "bleu cheese" place right now!). I am not an avocado fan so I left that off. This was really tasty and had great buffalo chicken flavor. I really liked it and will definitely have it again. The rice was a little dry but did have a nice lime flavor to it. Jerri Ann really raved about the black beans and said they were some of the best she'd had.

The nice thing about Tin Star is your direct access to the chips and salsa bar. We can put away the chips pretty quickly so it is cool to be able to refill when you want. They have a nice variety of salsas and in the name of "research" we tried them all. The fire-roasted version was definitely our favorite and we went back for a couple of refills. The salsa verde was just a little too "green" for us. That's a weird description but I'm not sure how else to describe it. It was fresh but maybe just a little too much tomatilla, it was very acidic and just wasn't our thing. The big surprise was the corn relish, we loved it! It had nice fresh corn with a bit of onion and tomato and was really delicious. Considering it was November it had a great summery taste and went really well with the thin and crispy chips. You really want to give this a taste, it will have you hooked!

Jerri Ann and I both recommend you give Tin Star a try. They are a great place for lunch and we ate our weight in chips in salsa! Never underestimate the importance of "research", we do this for you! Enjoy!

Keywords: Tulsa restaurant reviews, Tulsa restaurant recommendations, Rainey Talbot