Two former MSU students came home from the holidays with one goal: to revisit the restaurants in Starkville that they once enjoyed in college. Hunter McMillin and his fiance Mandi Johnson called me in, and I was struck with inspiration from The Reflector’s Cheese Fry Crawl last spring. Thus began our crawl searching for the best mozzarella sticks in Starkville.
The dish is rated on a scale of 1-5, judged based on taste, price and presentation. After each of us tasted a mozzarella stick, we shared our opinion and then summed everything up into an overall rating.
Our first stop was Walk-On’s Bistreaux, a recent breakout player in the fried cheese stick scene. The Mozzarella Logs were listed on the starters menu for $9.99. They were presented in a basket and appeared coated in bread crumbs with shaved parmesan and Italian seasoning on top. This dish was paired with ranch and marinara.
“This is a good cheese stick, especially dipped in the marinara. It’s sweet but good,” McMillin said upon his first bite.
The group was strangely torn about how the breading tasted. While McMillin and I felt it was sweet, Johnson was insistent it was too spicy for her to handle.
“It’s, like, burning my throat kind of,” she said while explaining the taste.
Though this was more likely due to her inability to handle spice, she stood by her opinion strongly.
There were also complaints that five sticks were not enough food to justify the price of $9.99, but McMillin believed the price was justified.
Overall rating: 3.5.
Next, we headed to Central Station Grill to taste the well-known Panko-Crusted Fried Cheese listed on the starter’s menu for $9.49. They came with six sticks, three of which were pepper jack and three were mozzarella-filled. They were garnished with herbs and paired with ranch and marinara sauces.
“Mmm melty, this cheese is perfect,” Johnson said after her first bite. “The cheese to bread ratio is elite.”
The group agreed that these cheese sticks were tasty. McMillin appreciated the variation of cheese, as this allowed eating two entire sticks.
“I think that this is delicioso, and the cheese is perfect and velvety smooth,” he said.
It seemed like this menu item was a big hit with our group, and the price was never disputed. The price of these was lower than Walk-On’s, but we were given six cheese sticks as opposed to five.
Overall rating: 3.8.
Our next stop was Mugshots Grill and Bar, where Tee’s Cheese Wedges are available for $8.99. This establishment also offered pepper jack and mozzarella cheese and served the sticks with a side of ranch dressing.
“I do like a good wedge,” Johnson said in reference to their shape.
It was easy to distinguish between the cheese options; the mozzarella was prepared in wedge form and the pepper jack was more of a square. There were also six fried cheese wedges, three of each kind of cheese. Shaved parmesan was used as a garnish on top.
“These are similar to the Grill, in the sense of cheese. You can get the same taste for cheaper here,” McMillin said. “I mean, this is just how I like it,”
The lower price gave us an opportunity to critically compare these wedges to the previous sticks and logs we tried. Johnson challenged some of her previous ratings and claimed Mugshots was the best she had.
“I think the crust-to-cheese ratio is honestly better here than the Grill,” Johnson said.
The popular opinion seemed to be positive. The only complaint was that the presentation of the dish was not as good as the others. McMillin insisted that the price and taste were more than enough to make up for the lack of a pretty appearance.
“I want to go back there and kiss the chef,” McMillin said.
Overall rating: 4.2.
Finally, we brought our crawl to a close at Stagger-In’s new location at College View. Their Pregame Warm-Up menu listed Stagger Cheese Sticks for $9.99. Again, we were given a mixture of pepper jack and mozzarella cheese sticks carefully placed in a circle around a side of marinara.
“First of all, these look thick and snack-a-licious,” Johnson said.
The six sticks were nicely crusted on the outside and perfectly creamy on the inside. The group made multiple comments about how the environment inside of Stagger-In was the perfect place to consume fried cheese. We were sitting amongst loud, energizing music and many neon lights.
Upon the first bite, there was already talk of these being the best fried cheese sticks in Starkville. The table was quiet briefly as we focused solely on the heavenly appetizer.
“This is perfect because it’s like an upscale Sonic,” Johnson said, referring to the fast-food chain’s famous mozzarella sticks.
“Stag, you did it, you did it good,” said McMillin. “This cheese is bussin’ out the frame.”
Though the price was one of the highest, we were all in agreement that the cheese was worth the money.
Overall, we crowned Stagger-In the winner of our fried cheese stick crawl and rated their Stagger Cheese Sticks at a 4.7.