Today’s Special | Pork Tenderloin Sliders

It’s not the size of a sandwich that makes it great. There are two-handers and hoagies and superheroes and sammitches with far more meat and heft than The Rieger’s pork tenderloin sliders. There are pork tenderloins that hang precariously over the bun and others that appear to have come from pigs of prehistoric stature.

But the pork tenderloin sliders, currently on The Rieger’s happy hour menu, are small sandwiches with a great big punch.

When Chef Howard Hanna, who co-owns The Rieger (1924 Main Street) and Ça Va, was putting together his first menu five years ago, he started thinking about what sandwich would represent the Midwest well. He kept returning to the idea of doing a pork tenderloin.

He found inspiration at Kitty’s Café — a square box of a luncheonette that has been serving pork tenderloins for 61 years in Midtown. They serve a triple stack of crispy tempura tenderloin slices that is light and crunchy. Hanna, a devotee, orders his with extra mayo and hot sauce and a side of tater tots.

Chef Howard Hanna drew inspiration for The Rieger’s pork tenderloin sliders from near and far. “In the Midwest, we probably have the best pork in the world.”

“I kind of owe the idea of using tempura to Kitty’s. I kind of owe the tempura itself to Heston Blumenthal,” said Hanna.

Blumenthal, who runs the Fat Duck in England, delved into tempura and determined that using vodka in lieu of water for the batter would yield a lighter, crunchier tempura. Hanna married Blumenthal’s theory from across the pond with Kitty’s sandwich from up the street.

“We kind of put [Kitty’s and Heston Blumenthal] together and made it this cool Midwestern sandwich with ideas from other cultures.”

The dainty slider duo, which arrive barside on a plank made from whiskey barrel staves, are each roughly the size of a tea saucer. The thin, crunchy pork tenderloin slices sit nestled beneath a bit of butter lettuce, sliced radishes, and pickled red onion, all in the embrace of a pair of custom made Farm to Market egg buns.

The sandwich is a celebration of pork — the meat that has been become the calling card of the Midwest — served in a sandwich that is a staple on menus from Kansas City to Indianapolis. Hanna uses Duroc pork that he sources from Paradise Locker Meats.

“We didn’t want to be known as just a pork place, but pork is something that we do really well in the Midwest,” said Hanna.

Even though Hanna changes the menu seasonally, the tenderloin has been a mainstay because his regulars demand it. When The Rieger stopped offering lunch last March, the tenderloin was reinvented as a happy hour menu item and shrunk from one larger sandwich into two sliders.

“It’s light and crunchy and satisfying,” said Hanna.

— Follow “Today’s Special,” a five-part digital-first series, on Mondays at Flatland and on Thursdays at KCPT. Next week (Oct. 19 | TV Oct. 22) it’s a Hemingway-sized pour at Julep.