I ate a bad sandwich from a good restaurant on Friday night. I was going to write about it, since I figured at the very least it would shut Russ up about all the sandwiches being rated in the 80s.

But I realized a couple things: I liked the place and the people there seemed friendly, plus all the other food I had was good, so I’m not eager to rip it in print. Second, Sandwich of the Week is to revere the greatness of sandwiches, not lament their shortcomings.

So I went out Sunday and found a sandwich worth celebrating.

The sandwich: Chili Cheese Dog from Hubba, nee Pat’s Hubba Hubba, nee Texas Quick Lunch on Main St. in Port Chester, N.Y.

The construction: A hot dog split lengthwise and grilled with chili and American cheese on a hot dog bun. I added ketchup.

Important background information: Hubba is a tiny storefront on a main drag in Port Chester, a cramped space consisting only of a long counter with about 10 stools. The walls are papered in bills, most of them American dollars, many of them marked on.

I understand Hubba’s is a popular late-night spot, but there was only one party there when I entered and I’m pretty certain it included Tim Teufel. That is to say I saw Tim Teufel and his family eating at Hubba. (Should I not write this? Is this too TMZish?) I didn’t say anything; the last thing I want to do is bother Teufel while he’s enjoying greasy, chili-smothered food with his family. But then I realized I’ve actually spoken to Teufel on multiple occasions and there was some reasonable chance he recognized me.

That made me feel a little uncomfortable. I didn’t want to insult Teufel’s intelligence by assuming he didn’t remember me, but at the same time I recognize Tim Teufel probably meets a fair share of reporters and that I probably resemble any old schmo who might be alone in a greasy spoon on a Sunday afternoon, waiting on a chili-cheese dog. And there was some chance it was just some guy who looks a lot like Teufel, since Teufel’s not exactly Gheorghe Muresan in terms of distinctiveness of appearance.

Because the thought of sitting down next to Teufel — remember it’s a small place so there weren’t any other seating options — and either acknowledging him or not acknowledging him was too awkward to handle, I scrapped plans to eat in Hubba and placed my order to go. Then I stood and tried to estimate how many dollars were on the walls and ceiling. I figure it’s about a couple thousand.

Then I thought, wait a sec, Tim Teufel was on the ’86 Mets. No way a world champion should be paying for his own chili dog. Isn’t that part of the deal? My understanding is you win the World Series and everything you ever eat within a 50-mile radius of the home stadium is free. That seems reasonable, at least.

But by this point I had already paid for my order and the guy was putting my food in a bag, and plus I had no idea how to smoothly offer to pay for Tim Teufel’s meal (without paying for the rest of his party, because if Teufel’s wife wanted a free hot dog she could have gone 4-for-9 with a homer in a World Series too). So I bailed and went to chow down in my car.

Incidentally, if you had told me five years ago that in 2011 I would spot Tim Teufel in a hole-in-the-wall hot dog place and it would prompt professional awkwardness, I would have marked you as a crazy person.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: It’s a chili-cheese dog, for sure. And that’s obviously a good thing.

The chili is the highlight. It’s pretty much just ground beef, grease and really finely chopped hot peppers, with some seasoning that turns the grease orange the way it is when you make tacos at home with one of those kits. It’s got a good bit of spice to it, and because there are no beans and the peppers are cut so small it essentially has a consistent texture, which makes it a good topping.

The cheese tastes like American cheese. Obviously it complements the chili and hot dog well, because, you know, chili cheese dog.

As for the wiener: Splitting hot dogs lengthwise and grilling them seems to be a Westchester thing, and it’s one I appreciate. It usually — or at least it is intended to — give the hot dog a little more snap, a quality which, to me, separates the great hot dogs from the bad and the merely OK.

At Hubba, though, the dog itself is a bit soft, even after grilling. It’s not bad — the flavor is good and appropriately hot-doggy — it just doesn’t have much crunch to it.

With the ketchup adding sweetness, the salty hot dog and the spicy chili and creamy cheese combined to provide a pretty excellent array of flavors in each bite. This is a very good sandwich, even by chili-cheese dog standards.

What it’s worth: Super cheap. It’s not a ton of food, mind you, but the chili-cheese dog and a decent-sized order of fries ran me only $5. Not sure how it broke down, to be honest.

How it rates: 77 out of 100. This is a tasty sandwich, but for something as straightforward as a chili cheese dog to reach Hall of Fame or near-Hall of Fame levels it would have to far exceed my already high standards for chili cheese dogs with near-perfect execution. And that means a snappier hot dog. Still delicious and certainly a meal worthy of a world champion Met, but it didn’t do enough to distinguish itself from other great chili cheese dogs I’ve had. In other words: Call me when you’re Ben’s Chili Bowl.

This sandwich, from a pizza place, comes on recommendation from former intern Jimmy, a former pizza-place employee who knows a thing or two about pizza places. Incidentally, if you’re a college student eligible for college credit, you too could have the opportunity to work here for no money and recommend sandwiches to me — especially if you have a background in web design or programming. I don’t hire our interns, but if you email me your resume I’ll put it in the right hands.

The sandwich: The “Tuesday” sandwich from Previti Pizza, 41st St. between Park and Lexington in Manhattan.

(Note: This sandwich is only available on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I don’t know what happens if you go in and ask for it on a Wednesday, but you could always try and then fall back on the delicious-looking pizza if you can’t get it. Plus if they have a Tuesday sandwich then it stands to reason they probably have a Wednesday sandwich, and maybe that’s really good too.)

The construction: Roast beef with jus, fresh mozzarella cheese, garlic butter and sour cream and onion potato chips on house-baked bread.

Yeah, you read that right. Sour cream and onion chips. On the sandwich.

Important background information: I am Italian and I love garlic. One time I smoked a bunch of garlic cloves in my home smoker, and though I intended to use them in more involved concoctions, I wound up just eating most of them as snacks. When a recipe calls for garlic, I generally double the amount. My wife and I have spent time discussing whether anything could really be too garlicky, since I’ve never reached that mark with anything I’ve made at home.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Really good, and really garlicky. Maybe on the cusp of critical garlic, that ever-elusive “too garlicky” distinction. Not quite there, because it was still quite tasty. Just don’t plan on spending your afternoon making out with anyone who hasn’t also eaten this sandwich.

The bread is the highlight here. I’m not sure if it’s just a ball of pizza dough baked to crispiness and sliced in half or not — it tastes like it could be — but it’s got a great, crispy crust and a nice doughy inside that soaks up all the roast beef and cheese juices. It’s clearly fresh, and it comes piping hot. The one thing, though, is there’s some sort of powdered seasoning on the outside part of the bread that gets all over your fingers and also might be responsible for taking this thing up to that garlic threshold. Salty, too.

Inside the sandwich, the roast beef, cheese, potato chips and garlic butter all kind of ooze together into a delicious meatcake. Because it’s all hot, the roast beef is more toward the well-done side and doesn’t have that rare redness on the inside that a lot of roast beef enthusiasts are partial too, but then if you’re looking for a sandwich that emphasizes the roast beef your probably in the wrong place. The essence of this sandwich is the combination of textures — crispy bread, meaty beef, gooey cheese, crunchy chips — and though you can taste all the elements, the most powerful flavor, by far, is the garlic.

The sour cream and onion chips, I should mention, are an inspired addition. They don’t hold perfectly hold their crunchiness because of all the juices inside the sandwich, but then there’s a heck of a lot of crunch from the crust of the bread anyway. And the seasoning gives it a nice, familiar, potato-chippy aftertaste. Really clutch for those of us who like to accompany sandwiches with potato chips, because now you don’t even have to bother opening the bag and eating them one by one, they’re already on there so chow down brother.

(Incidentally — and I know this sounds gross — crumbled up Nacho Cheese Doritos go pretty well on a hot dog. Try it before you judge it.)

What it’s worth: It came with a can of soda, and I believe it ran me $8. And since it’s right near Grand Central and I ate it for lunch on a day I was coming in late, it wasn’t really out of my way at all. Certainly well worth the cost — especially when you consider the price of lunch in Midtown.

How it rates: Russ from programming is going to get on me about this, but I’ve got to put it in the 80s. It clearly needed something more to make the Hall of Fame — perhaps some sweet element like a marinara? — and maybe a bit less saltiness and garlic flavor. But it was still really good, as all sandwiches in the 80s are.

That’s the thing — I normally eat way more sandwiches than I review here, so only the notable ones get written up. I bring a sandwich for lunch most days that’s probably in the 50s. I had a sandwich from the deli around the corner last night that was probably high 60s. I imagine sandwiches could be charted on a bell curve of excellence, so there are more sandwiches in the 70s than the 80s and more sandwiches in the 80s than the 90s. So shut up, Russ. Also, that meeting you run is excruciatingly boring. You should consider PowerPoint or a musical interlude or bringing in the Knicks City Dancers or something. 83 out of 100.

People always refer to “gilding the lily” as if it’s a bad thing. And look: Lilies are nice and all and I recognize that there’s not much demand to improve them. But only a fool wouldn’t trade a straight-up old school lily for a lily covered in solid gold. Gild that thing. That’s what I say.

The sandwich: Spicy Chicken Sandwich with pepper jack cheese from Chik-Fil-A, many locations, most of them (but not all) outside of New York.

The construction: Boneless, breaded white-meat chicken breast with pickles and pepper jack cheese on a buttered bun.

Important background information: Someone needs to write a book on American regional fast food. Does that already exist? If not, someone needs to pay me to write a book on American regional fast food.

Chick-Fil-A might occupy the first chapter. Though the Georgia-based chain is slowly diffusing throughout the country, in inaccessible areas it remains the stuff of legend, due mostly to the strength of its chicken sandwich. The folks at NY Mag’s Grub Street — likely the “foodie” types who turn up their noses at most chain fast food — even ranked it among the Top 101 sandwiches in New York.

Pressure cooked in peanut oil, it is crispy and tasty on the outside and moist on the inside. It far outclasses chicken sandwiches from all the major fast food chains, many of which are cardboard-dry and appear reconstituted. Better than most is the McDonald’s Southern-style chicken sandwich, a clear rip-off of the Chick-Fil-A sandwich that features exactly the same stuff but is just not quite as good in any way.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: Gilding the lily, and not in the good way.

I was hungry by the time my flight landed in West Palm Beach on Friday and downright starving by the time I secured my rental car, so I was thrilled when Matt Cerrone tipped me off that there was a Chick-Fil-A not five miles north of the airport, off I-95. I figured I’d swing through to pick up the classic Chick-Fil-A sandwich, something delicious that I haven’t eaten in some time.

When I got there I saw the sign heralding the new Spicy Chicken sandwich, and I figured if I like the regular one so much and I like spicy things in general, I should probably go for it. And then I saw that I could add cheese to the sandwich for only 30 cents more, and hell, cheese is delicious. Pepper jack that bastard up.

What I ate was still delicious, mind you — undoubtedly head and shoulders over every other fast-food chicken sandwich. The breading was still crispy and the chicken inside still moist. But the spiciness tasted somehow forced, like they just added a ton of spicy spices to the breading and robbed it of its subtlety. (Can a fast-food sandwich have subtlety?) And the pepper jack cheese, though creamy and good, just felt unnecessary.

Eating the sandwich only served to remind me how amazing the original sandwich is in its simplicity. Fried chicken, pickles, bun. Sometimes if everything’s good you don’t need to pile on ingredients for more flavor. That’s how the spicy version tasted, and it made me crave Chick-Fil-A’s OG sandwich offering.

Luckily, I stopped and got one on my way back to the airport. And lo, it was good.

What it’s worth: Cost something like $5 with a Diet Dr. Pepper — which they had on tap at this Chick-Fil-A. And it was only three or four minutes out of my way, tops. Very well worth the price.

How it rates: Hmm. If I had a separate scale for fast-food items, this might reach the upper 80s or even approach the fringes of the Fast Food Sandwich Hall of Fame. But there isn’t a separate scale, so this gets judged against the rest of them, which is kind of unfair but whatever. Truth is, it is the exceptionally rare — and perhaps non-existent — mass-produced fast food sandwich that’s going to compete in deliciousness with the upper echelon of sandwiches I’ve reviewed here.

But you know I like fast food, and obviously I recognize the benefit of enjoying incredibly convenient and reasonably priced fare, especially when it is also very tasty. I didn’t even have to get out of my car! America! 72 out of 100.