The Palace man and his teammates kept the Lilywhites quiet until the 55th minute, when Heung-Min Son netted to precede a Christian Eriksen poach which earned three points for the north Londoners.
Looking back on the match following the final whistle, Tomkins said that this evening's game would always be a difficult one, but that he felt his side held their own for large swathes of an uphill battle.
He said: "It’s always tough playing Spurs. And coming to the new stadium as well, it was always going to be a bit tougher I suppose. But we gave it a good go, in the first half we kept them pretty quiet and in the main I think we did pretty well. We all know we can do better but it was their day today.
"At the start it’s not ideal with the ceremony, that goes on and you’re standing there for quite a while. It’s quite surreal compared to what you’re used to but the atmosphere was always going to be great and we kept them quiet, that was the main thing: coming here and keeping that crowd quiet for as long as we could. We did that but couldn’t quite get the win.
"Everyone’s full of emotion, not just the players. We’ll take positives out of that going into a big game on Saturday."
One of the clearest positives the Palace may be able to take, however, comes from elsewhere, with both Brighton & Hove Albion and Cardiff City losing tonight.
Reflecting on the other results, Tomkins conceded that Palace can feel grateful that neither the Seagulls or Bluebirds were able to advance any higher up the Premier League table.
He said: "Sometimes it’s not nice looking at other results and hoping for losses here and there but that’s the reality of it. Hopefully we can get some points on the board from now until the end of the season."
For the rest of the post-match reaction, keep an eye on cpfc.co.uk, Palace TV and on our social media channels.