A few weeks ago, Capitol Hill resident (and Barred in DC follower) named Lisa was at dinner with a couple of her friends when the topic turned to planning something fun they could do during the doldrums of winter that they could look forward to. A bar crawl could be fun, but maybe something a bit different. Saturday, on Valentine’s Day weekend, a new tradition was born: a mozzarella stick crawl.

Yes, Lisa led 30+ friends (yes, this is more than has attended any Barred in DC event in the past) on a journey to sample some of the area’s best melted, deep fried oblongs of melted mozzarella cheese. Deemed Mozzy Stick Crawl, this inaugural event captured the hearts and bellies this town, uniting a “polarized district” (sic) over fatty goodness , aside from multiple snarky tweeters joking about Lipitor. Lisa even labored for hours on Photoshop to design an iron-on sweatshirt (19 were distributed).

After first starting at some place I’ve literally never heard of in Rossyln (Quinn’s), the mozz/mozzy crawlers Uber XL’d (the conveyance of choice between the far-flung spots, though some folks walked off the calories between the spots) to Franklin Hall (off U Street), then to Ivy & Coney (Shaw; Lisa, who hails from the Midwest, was feted with the nectar of the gods, malort), an expected detour away from downtown’s Stan’s to Duffy’s on H street (who lured them via Twitter), and ending at the legendary Tune Inn on the Hill, sampling mozzarella sticks at each stop.

With input from other crawlers, Lisa even filled out scorecards (see note below) for each spot, rating them on venue, breading, crispiness, presentation, cheese viscosity, temperature, flavor, sauce options, and service. At the end, the last stop-Tune Inn-came up on top (though Duffy’s, which has a Wisconsin influence, was said to have massive mozzarella sticks if size matters). At the end of the day, some of the mozzy stick crawlers peeled off to Mission Navy Yard to dance off the calories, and have even more hot cheese, this time in the form of queso.

In part because she has leftover iron-on paper, a chicken tendies crawl will be coming to DC in the next month or two. Stay tuned.

[Note, a mini-controversy erupted Sunday afternoon as fans of local amazing water-color artist Riley Sheehey recognized the scorecard as either using images of mozz sticks created by her or actually the scorecard was created by her for an a previous crawl. Per Lisa, one of her friends on the group text found the scorecard and texted her it. Of course, people have done mozz crawls before but none of them tagged Barred in DC, so they effectively don’t exist. Lisa reached out to Riley and all is well]