Technical Difficulties

Bubba's "double play" hamburger is the best I had in a sports bar. It was a towering creation held together by a long toothpick with cellophane frills on the top. On the bottom bun, the tall stack began with a large slice of raw sweet onion, a crunchy ingredient too frequently overlooked by hamburger architects. On top of that sat the lettuce, tomato, pickles and a huge layer of pickled jalapeños (optional, of course). A melting slice of American cheese was layered between the two patties, each of which weighed a third of a pound. I got cole slaw as a side -- it was the sweet and creamy variety made with lots of mayo. You can choose fries or onion rings instead. The double-meat burger and fries sells for $7 here, a buck cheaper than at Fox Sports Grill. And Bubba's actually knows how to make a burger.

Instead of competing for fans of the local teams, some sports bars have specialized. Bubba's is home away from home for alums and backers of the University of Tennessee Volunteers. Longhorns fans might not want to watch college football here, but Bubba's is a great place to watch Astros or Texans games.

Other sports bars with fan clubs include Nick's Place Italian Sports Bar & Pizzeria, which hosts the Cheddarhead Pack of Houston, as Green Bay Packers fans call themselves; Big Woodrow's is LSU territory. The list goes on and on.

I sampled a crawfish poor boy and some crab bisque during an Astros playoff game at Big Woodrow's. The sports bar and Cajun restaurant on Chimney Rock near the Richmond Strip may be the closest thing in town to a singles sports bar. The crowd was heavily weighted toward college students, some of whom actually appeared to be studying while they drank beer and watched baseball.

My dining companion found the crawfish poor boy too dry, but she forgot to apply the tartar sauce that came in a little paper cup. When she had discarded her mangled half of the sandwich, I slathered the other half with the white stuff and added a generous dose of Cajun Chef Louisiana Hot Sauce. With these adjustments, the sandwich was pretty good, although the previously frozen crawfish lacked any juiciness.

Cajun crab bisque is generally a dark, roux-based soup, in my experience, but the Big Woodrow's version is white and creamy. There is lots of crab in it, and it's very rich and thick, sort of like a crab chowder with no potatoes or onions. I don't think I would order it again, but it really wasn't all that bad. We also got an order of chicken wings. They were tasty, but the sauce hadn't been baked onto the meat very well. When I asked if they had any sauce on them at all, the waitress brought me some more. Dipping each wing in extra sauce made them extremely hot.

Among the best wings I've sampled are the ones at the Wet Spot, a new sports bar on West Gray in the old Freedmen's Town area of the Fourth Ward. The locals who are left hate the place, but it may be the hippest sports bar in town. It's made of corrugated metal and concrete, just like some of the new loft buildings.

I sampled the Wet Spot's tuna sashimi on shredded cabbage, easily the most bizarre sports bar food I ate all week. Three of us also got a sampling of their sandwiches. The Philly cheese steak was the best, though I will never get used to mayonnaise on this kind of sandwich. The catfish poor boy was made with thick fish steaks that didn't get crisp enough, so the sandwich tasted gloppy. The bacon cheeseburger with jalapeños was delivered without bacon, without jalapeños and with a side of fries that were pale, limp and undercooked.

"The kitchen is really slammed," the waitress apologized.

"They probably had no idea there was an Astros game tonight," one of my dining companions quipped.

Back at Fox Sports Grill, I've been waiting more than 15 minutes for the mustard, mayo, silverware and salad dressing to finally arrive. And nobody is apologizing about it. Earlier I got up and got my own salt and pepper shaker off a nearby table.

You don't expect all that much from sports bar cuisine. But at Fox Sports Grill you can't even get a properly made burger. Throwing the ingredients on the plate may be all the rage in Phoenix or New Jersey or wherever this corporation is based, but here in Houston, we expect somebody to actually make the sandwich. And take a little pride in it.

But the biggest surprise is the check. After that fiasco of a hamburger, the bartender hands me a bill for more than $10.

"The burger is $7.95 on the menu," I point out to him.

"It's $1.50 extra for the salad," the little geek tells me.

"You asked me if I wanted fries or a salad; you didn't say it was extra to substitute the salad," I snarl. It's a sleazy little trick that no self-respecting Houston sports bar would ever pull on you.