There are great debates in food: Sauce or no sauce. Thin crust or thick. Sweet cornbread or cornbread that minds its business.
And now, apparently, crisp versus crunch.
If you’ve missed it, there have been some minor kerfuffles in the world of chili oil—specifically over whether the word “crunch” belongs to any one person, company, or corner of the universe. Lawyers have gotten involved. Feelings have been bruised. Cease-and-desist letters have fluttered across the land like particularly aggressive fortune cookies.
Of course, there are other questions too. What kind of heat? Numbing or not so much? Big flakes or little ones? Gentle glow or full alarm bell? It’s enough to make me reach for the dreaded acronym: SMH.
On the one hand, food is culture, and culture matters. Names carry history. They carry memory. They carry meaning.
On the other hand… it’s chili oil.
Call it crisp. Call it crunch. Call it the stuff you put on everything when nobody’s looking.
Around here, we’re less interested in litigating texture and more interested in eating it.
Which brings us to the Kimchi Egg Melt.
Scrambled eggs, kimchi, Empower Farm bok choy, Monterey Jack, all tucked into thick slices of Flour Head Bakery Texas toast. It’s warm and savory and just unruly enough to wake you up a little. The kimchi brings heat and tang, the eggs soften the edges, the toast holds it all together like it knew this was coming.
And yes, there’s chili oil involved. Crisp. Crunch. Whatever you want to call it. What matters is the way it lands—how it hums underneath everything else, how it turns a good sandwich into something even more palpable with a texture that’s alive and invigorating, too.
Food has always borrowed. Always evolved. Always slipped across borders and languages and kitchens. Long before anyone thought to trademark the sound it makes between your teeth.
You say crisp. I say crunch.
Either way, eat more, debate less. Your palate will leave happy and your relationships, intact.