I am what you might call a wing connoisseur.

Hot sauce is my favorite condiment, and though it might offend my vegetarian roommate, I really like eating wings because there's something oh-so-enjoyable about ripping meat off of a chicken bone.

But you venture into hazy territory with 25-cent wing night.

Do restaurants sacrifice quality, pulling out the junky frozen wings the size of your pinky finger, or do you leave the restaurant, feeling satisfied with your dozen wings that cost you all of $3?

Luckily, at Champs Sports Bar & Grill, 1611 N. Atherton St., 25 cent wing night generally falls into the second category.

My friends and I were in search of some late-night hot wings, and we weren't disappointed with our overall experience at Champs.

The environment is your typical sports bar. There's ample seating in a front room (complete with football plays painted on the wooden floorboards), a bar area and even a patio seating area. One Monday it had rained, and the breeze from the opened-up room cooled us off after a muggy day.

It was practically empty on our first visit, bustling on our second and really hectic on the third, so there doesn't seem to be any factor as to what brings the crowds on wing nights. Maybe more people are in town as summer goes on.

Really good music blasted through speakers - it started off with more contemporary rock (311) but progressed toward classic rock (Warren Zevon and Bruce Springsteen) throughout the night.

The menu doesn't hold any surprises - sandwiches, pizza, burgers and pasta - but there is an impressive salad menu. But on to the most important menu options - wings. At Champs, they come in three interestingly named flavors - meek, arrogant or obnoxious. I played it safe and went with arrogant.

It took the wings a noticeably long time to come out on our first visit, despite there being very few other people in the restaurant. The wings, however, were worth the wait.

They were incredibly hot to the touch - must have been straight out of the fryer.

The wings were huge, and I ended up with more of my favorite, the one-bone type, than the two-bone wings (you wing aficionados will know what I'm talking about).

The sauce is less like the traditional buffalo sauce and more like a tangy mix of sweet barbecue and a combination of a lot of tasty spices. It was absolutely delicious.

Service at Champs was really responsive. The waitresses were friendly and accommodating to our need (well, let's be honest, my need) for extra napkins.

However, I was disappointed with the beverage options. Most restaurants give you unlimited refills on fountain drinks, but Champs limits you to one free refill for your $1.79 soda. Otherwise, a pitcher costs you $3.99.

And if you think you're being conservative by ordering water, think again. A friend ordered water, and the waitress politely informed us that it'd cost $1.

On wing night, when you're going to need to cool off your mouth, you'd think they'd be a bit more liberal with its drinks.

Hmph. At least an employee later told us this is only in effect on specials' nights like wing night.

I was glad the service was a lot faster on my second visit since I was ready for another round of those delicious wings.

This time, it seemed as if the cook was more heavy-handed with the spices - my arrogant wings were incredibly spicy, and a friend was tearing up by the end of his obnoxious wings. It was almost too much to handle.

But on my third trip in as many weeks, I was disappointed because Champs had run out of wings by 11:20 p.m. The waitress brought us our bill for three soft drinks and a water.

That's right, they charged us for the water.

Call me crazy, but it should not cost a dollar for water when you don't even get the darn wings. (It shouldn't cost a dollar EVER, but that's beside the point.)

After we asked to see a manager about this debacle, we thankfully didn't have to pay for our beverages. And we went home and had some other mighty fine wings.

So my advice to you, dear reader, would be to head to Champs early on wing night.

I suppose that when you're paying three bucks for a dozen quality wings, shelling out another dollar for water isn't that bad, as long as they haven't run out of the amazing wing-y goodness first.