-I Made A $127 Boba For Simu Liu From Marvel’s Shang-Chi • Dish Granted.

Hello and welcome to Dish Granted. I'm your host, Steven Lim. I've had the opportunity to try some of the most extravagant meals all around the world. But here, I'll be in the kitchen, giving my guests a taste of that same luxury. With no limit to how much I can spend, I'll have 24 hours to create a dish beyond their wildest dreams. This is Dish Granted. This is the season finale, Tony. We're here. So how are you feeling? You know, I'm feeling really grateful that we got to do a bunch of different dishes for a bunch of amazing people. So deep and thoughtful. I was just gonna say I'm tired. Today, the special guest whose dish I'll grant is none other than my close friend and newly minted Marvel superhero, Simu Liu. That's right, we got Shang-Chi, baby. Simu is the new star of the upcoming film, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. But more than that, Simu's just a great guy. And I wanted to have him on the show because I want to show my appreciation for him. I got to know him playing basketball, smash, ping pong, you name it, we were competing at it. More than that though, I just really appreciate our talks about relationships, careers, life, and how much he supported me over the years. He's also been such a proponent of the Asian American community, helping to fight against Asian hate. And that's something I think we can all model after. All that being said, I think he's the perfect person to cap off our season. Without further ado, what do you want, Simu? What's going on, man? Oh my God, are we matching? Yeah, I knew what you were putting on today. So I wanted to be your Shang-Chi variant. I'm glad to have you on the show. Oh man, thank you so much for having me on. It only took you, what, how many episodes did you do without me, without asking me? We did eight without you, but you're the season finale. That makes me feel a little better. Okay, Steven, the dish that you are granting me today is boba. Boba! I actually was expecting this. I know you love boba. Probably not as much as I love boba. I really, really love boba. What is it about boba that makes it so addicting to you? You know, if I'm honest, Steven, it's probably all the sugar. Here's the thing, I love all sorts of boba. I love Boba Guy's Strawberry Matcha Latte, Jasmine Milk Tea, nice and plain and simple, but I also love more dessert-based bobas like Panna Cotta Boba and Crème Brûlée Boba. I mean, it seems to me like boba is the grounds for some serious creative innovation. You had mentioned the Boba Guy's Strawberry Matcha Latte as an example. That's a layered drink. What are you looking for when you're getting a more advanced level boba beverage? So like we said, the Strawberry Matcha Latte, it's presented as three distinct parts, and then after you get it, you stir it. You know, I'm looking for something like that, pure Instagram goodness right when you see it, but then tastes even better if you can conceive of that in your mind. I can and I am right now. Okay. You were all about presentation. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I wouldn't say all about presentation, but I think you eat with your eyes first. With the Strawberry Matcha Latte, you almost feel bad about mixing it up, right? Because it looks so good. Let's say that you spend $100 here at Dish Credit Headquarters. What are you expecting from me? If I'm spending $100, I would expect boba that is of the highest quality. Like, we're not talking about this mass-produced stuff. I want each individual boba to reflect the effort and the love that you, Steven, have for our friendship. Oh, gosh. Do I want maybe something in there that has absolutely nothing to do with the flavor, but is just there to make it look good? I don't know. Let's go big. This is the boba they deserve in a superhero film. Let's put this in Shang-Chi, too. What Iron Man did to Shawarma, I'm hoping to do for boba. How about that? All right, I have a lot to work with. I feel very good about this episode. I can't wait. Go forth and create my drink. This is gonna be great. Boba. So, Simu has a lot of opinions on boba. We have to wow him in every way possible. Shang-Chi the movie is the Legend of the Ten Rings. What if we make the boba Legend of the Ten Ingredients? Whoa. Is that crazy? That's pretty ambitious of you, Steven. Let's start with the most important ingredient, the boba. Every single boba must represent our friendship, he said. I want each individual boba to reflect the effort and the love that you, Steven, have for our friendship. That's a lot of pressure. No machine, no store-bought. We're gonna make our own brown sugar homemade boba. But how can we make this more personalized? What if it's like the colors of his costumes? What if we took it further and made the drink the colors of his costume? Yeah, that's kind of what I meant. Oh, that's what you're saying? I thought you meant the boba. His costume is red, black, touches of gold. Let me just draw a cup first. That'll help me visualize. There is a strawberry puree in the strawberry matcha latte that he mentioned. You know what fruit actually works really well with other flavors? Dragon fruit. So let's make another puree. No, let's make a jam, the puree above that. We've got four ingredients so far. I do want to incorporate matcha. Wait, let's make a charcoal matcha. And you know what goes well with matcha flavor? Black sesame, and we can make that a milk. Okay, how does that sound? Ridiculous, but great. Ooh, one more thing. I think all the trend nowadays is this foam on top, but I'm not into cheese foam. I have seen dalgona coffee. Have you seen that before? Like a frothy coffee? He doesn't drink coffee though. So what if we do it with a tea? Let's include a black tea and make that dalgona style. Nine, we need one more to top it off. Simu did mention that he kind of wants something that's just there for no reason. And I hate to say it, because on Worth It, we ate it a lot and it served no point. Let's just put some gold flakes on here. Sorry, I just had another idea. I don't know if you have time for it. What you got? When I was in Taiwan, we drank tea in this gong fu cha ceremony. Funny enough, gong fu is the same word kung fu. What if we serve the master of kung fu, his tea in a gong fu cha ceremony? Is this too much? It's so extra, but like in all the right ways. Boba, we're gonna make our own homemade boba here. Boba has been conquered by very few and taken the lives of many, wait. The perfect boba, we're trying to reach an exact texture. In Taiwan, they call it QQ. It's almost al dente. Somebody who explained it really well for me to understand is Emmy Maid. She's a YouTuber. All we gotta do is combine the ingredients into a dough, my favorite thing. So we're gonna measure out 60 grams of water, 45 grams of muscovado sugar until it forms into a nice, delightful syrup and then slowly incorporate the tapioca and form it together when it's hot, but not burning. It's starting to thicken. Oh yeah, here we go. Why is it so wet still? You skipped something? No. Hold up. It doesn't look like boba. It looks like no tea. It does. Something has gone extremely wrong. I'm gonna heat this back up until it starts to thicken and then remove it from the heat. Okay, okay. Oh, wait. So it like boils down quite a bit. No, I have to start over. Take two. Water, brown sugar, dissolve. Let's do it. That was too hot. Take three. Slow and steady wins the race. Still very wet. What is going on? Oh, here we go. It's thickening. Okay, maybe off the heat now. Oh, there we go, there we go, there we go. Oh yeah. We just need more heat. Go, go, go, go. Boba, boba. Cue, cue, cue, cue. Okay, I'm gonna knead this together with my hands. Let's go work this dough. It's warm. I wanna eat this. Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna cut this into strips, fold it out into tinier balls, and then roll. So then we'll have a bowl of boba. That looks good. Good call. All right, let's see if it fits. Oh no, wait. How do you know it's gonna be too big? Wanna come and help? Sure. We're gonna boil boba, then let it rest for 20. Look at these giant boba balls. Look, as they start to finish, they rise. Whoa. That is translucent. It's the right color. We did it. Now that they're done boiling, we're gonna melt the sugar together. Let's try those big ones separately. Oh my. It's bubbling. The sugar's starting to caramelize on top of the boba. I just smell a boba shop. Two things I'm looking out for are, is it the right QQ texture? Do we need to add more sugar, which I don't think we do. I see a smile. Is it QQ, or is it just Q? It's actually really good. Feels a little underdone, but it's good. It's definitely boba. Okay, let's open this guy. Oh. It's basically mochi. That can't be good, right? Cheers. Oh, it's pretty good. Oh, it's a lot of flour. I know what to do. We're gonna refrain. Let's talk to Ben from Boba Guys. How do we get that more QQ texture for the boba? Let's do it. Ben, thank you for joining me. Happy to be here. Let me show you what happened on take one. What is that? Brown sugar and tapioca starch that just did not cooperate. We're now on batch number five, and we got it to the boba. All right, okay. It's a little tough on the inside. Do you know if that's because it needs to cook it more, like rest more? If you're saying that the center is hard, then you undercooked it, Steven. For US Boba Co., we make it for 30 minutes of cooking on a rolling boil, and then 30 minutes of sitting. Yeah, no, no, that's good to hear. I haven't started the layering process yet, but I wanted to ask you, because actually Simu brought it up, that the strawberry matcha latte is one of his favorite drinks. Dare I say, Instagram, there it is. How do you make the perfect layers? The thicker viscosity liquids are gonna go naturally to the bottom, and so that's how you wanna build your drink. You're gonna wanna start with the heaviest stuff, and then keep going and going and going, and then at the top, it's like the thinnest crema or something light. Like foam. Or foam. That'll be at the very, very top. Awesome. Very excited. I applaud you for trying to climb Mount Everest on your first try. Like, I love it. Good luck to you, Steven. Okie dokie. We made the boba. Went well. Let's start with the dragon fruit jam, and it's pretty simple to make. Oh, the inside of this one is not gray. It's actually bright red. That's not what I was expecting. Is there a difference in flavor? I don't know. White-ish dragon fruit often has a milder taste, and redder can be sweeter and juicier. So maybe we'll use less sugar. It's really just a little fruit cooked down with sugar, and you can add lemon to help kind of add a little more acidity. Put this aside now and work on strawberry puree. This is a $14 pack of strawberries. What? That's right. It's from Harry's Berries. Mm. Two cups of strawberries, one cup of raw cane sugar, one and a half cups of filtered water. So we can't over-puree. I'll just do slow pulse. Are you ready? Here we go. Woo! Oh! How is it? I mean, it's like strawberry crack is what it is. So good. Let's see how this is doing. Oh! Tasty alert. So we have our bottom layer. It's good to go. All right. This is where the fun starts. I get requests on the daily of people who ask me, what is my matcha recipe? We don't need the internet. We just need this brain right here. We're actually going to heat the water up around 80 to 85 degrees Celsius. I do have a friend. His name is Joe. He's a co-owner of Junbi, and they provided me with their highest grade ceremonial matcha. This can of matcha was 45 bucks. Oh yeah, that smells good. So I go double scoop. This is the thing I've never done before, which is to add charcoal. Usually when I pour, I'll go in like a circle. Oh my gosh, I have never seen this before. And then whisk. Whoa. It does alter the flavor. In a good way or a bad way? Not in a good way. It tastes like what I would drink at one of those very LA juice spots. Charcoal matcha. Make it at home, if you dare. Next up is our black sesame oat milk. It's the next layer in this boba beverage for Shang-Chi. We're going to soak these for a bit in water. Then we're going to combine this. Did I forget something? With our oat milk. I'm going to add just like half of this date right here. Maple syrup, tiniest bit of vanilla extract. Now we're going to take this and we're going to squeeze out the juice. All this for a cup of milk. No! You got to restrain it. I milked the sesame seeds by hand for you. It's so slow. Oh, that looks good. It's not bad. I think it's too much sesame. So we can take this and make some more milk. Look at that color. It's so beautiful. And look at the remains of the sesame. Try it. Oh, as a rep on day one, tomorrow we're going to be working with black tea. Buckle up, kids. Oh, psych, psych. It didn't actually happen. And you're still there. I'm still here. It's day two. Fun fact, I was up at 3 a.m. last night because I felt stressed. I was feeling good about it. And then I started to have like these nightmares. What if the layers don't sit? What if they combine? What if it looks bad? What if it tastes bad? I want to call a friend. Let's call my friend, Phil. Hey, Phil. Good morning. Let's go to my stress point first, which is layering. Is there a technique that you would suggest for pouring so that it doesn't mix right away? Honestly, if you just pour it very lightly, like it should be okay. Some people use like the spoon method where you pour it on the back of a spoon and then it kind of like hits the spoon and it breaks apart from there. That's another method. Gotcha. We have a jam, boba, puree, black sesame oat milk. That's a middle layer. And then we have taco matcha to match the colors of Shang-Chi's suit. And then we have a Dalgona tea on top. All right, I'm gonna go for it. Okay. What's the base? Is it tea? Is it milk base? Like what is the actual drink itself? I didn't even think about that. Most of the drink is a tea. I feel like it's gonna be pretty even. No, it won't be. It can't be even? Oh, I can't wait to watch this episode. That spread is coming from it dispersing into the rest of the liquid. It's gonna be the milk then. It sounds like it's gonna be the milk. Do you have any thoughts on ways that I can kind of spice up the presentation? Oh my gosh, you know what? It could be like an actual movie premiere. Like you roll out a red carpet for him. Bernie, do we have the time and budget to grab a red carpet for him? She said we'll look into it. I love it. I'm gonna dress up. All right, perfect. Good luck, man. Okay, for the final step here, we're gonna make black tea. It's a high mountain tea. And we got this from Steep LA. If you wanna learn more about the Chinese Gong Fu Cha ceremony, go to Steep. They're the real ones. And the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna make tea ice cubes because watery milk tea. That's not what you sign up for. First steep is about one minute. Second steep is 45 seconds. And third is 45 seconds as well. You can use a timer or just play it by kind of feel. It's warming up. Why did I come over here? I'm a feel kind of person. Let's just go back. You can't hold me down with rules, so half of life is just waiting for water to boil. When I'm pouring the tea, if you hit the outside edge, it's fine. You're just coloring the clay pot all the way to the top. And when I close it, it actually should come out a little bit. Once we brew that, we're just gonna freeze it in ice and then put that away and then you're ready to go. It's time to make our very final layer. Dalgona? Brittany, am I saying that right? Dalgona. In order to do a whipped tea, you actually need egg because there isn't as much structure in tea. So I got my recipe for this from Healthy Food PH. More boiling water. Oh, it's a lot of sugar. This whole thing of sugar. We need more sugar. I'm gonna make half portion. You're so smart. Quarter cup of brown sugar. Three eighths cup of tea. We're gonna make a little syrup and then slowly incorporate that into egg whites as I whip it up. Just the whites. Here we go. Oh! Take two. Oh gosh. That's it. See? Easy. I don't know how to use this. Just jam that in there. Oh yeah. Drizzle it in, baby. Let's go. Faster. Faster? Yup, there you go. Oh, the pan's heavy! Oh, buddy! Hold on! Oh, that's like ice cream. That is so good. Avengers, assemble! I've just been waiting all day to use that. Oh my gosh. A lot of boba. Next layer. Dragon fruit. I almost feel like you should grab the cup and put it in. Oh, this is gonna be tough. This is like surgery. You gotta be real careful. I can't be doing this in front of Simu. Next step, strawberry puree. Wait, how do I get down there? I have to spoon it. Is it forming a layer above? So you want to make sure that the liquid that you want to stay on top is coming out very lightly. I'm seeing a layer. Is that enough? Keep going. You want more? Oh no. This is bad. We need a shorter cup. You can still do it. Just go down the side? I'm telling you, you need to use a spoon. Go lower, go lower, go lower. Yes. Oh yeah. There you go. Yes, yes, yes. It's working. All right, that's good. Quickly, we must make the, oh, ice! You gotta drop that in very, very lightly. Just like that. It's melting. Act quick. Oh my goodness. I was right to lose sleep last night. I was right. This is the easiest part for me because I'm a matcha pro. Charcoal, just a tiny bit. How's the drink looking? It's looking good still. Okay. I'm gonna whisk this faster than I've ever whisked anything in my life before. I agree, Spin's my best friend now. Oh my gosh! We're doing it! Gotta act fast though. Okay, now the foam. Spoon? No, you don't have to spoon that. You can just plop it on. Wow, first try, Steven. Ta-da! Cold flakes! So unnecessary. Okay, you did it. It's beautiful! Exactly how I imagined it, except with more of a milk layer than I thought. Which one do you want? Left or right? The left one. Yeah. That's because my drawing sucks. All right, let's drink it. Oh my gosh, the foam at the top is making it very hard to mix it in. It's gonna be crazy. That's so beautiful! Yeah! It's so frickin' good! Get in here, Tony! It's like perfect sweetness. You really get the tea hit. The foam is like so rich. Wow, you really outdid yourself. I did! High five! What a way to end the season. No! What a long journey this guy has gone through. You too. Yeah. They don't know the emotional labor that you're putting on the show. Next time you see me, Steven will be here. Thank you, it's so good to be here. First of all, I love watching the show, and I love Steven, so I'm really excited to see what he's come up with. If Steven knows anything, it's food. It'd be different if it was something else like fashion or hair dye color. Are you sure you wanna pick that one? Are you? But I actually really do trust his taste with food. I see him. Hello. What's going on? Oh my God, you dressed up for me. Welcome to the Dish Granted boba shop. Oh my goodness. Come on in, we have breakfast. Think I'm gonna be here? What, oh my. All right. Steven, you pulled out all the stops for me. I feel like this is our third date or something. I'm nervous to put my name on this chair. Hey, take a seat. Here we go. Oh my God, Dish Granted. What even are these things, first of all? These are tea pets. Traditionally, after you have a little extra in your tea, you would actually pour it on top to help polish it off. And over like 10 years, it looks super nice. Wow. Pick one of those if you want. I can pick one? You can have a tea pet, your very first tea pet. And you'll have the other? Yes. And our tea pets will be like tea cousins? Tea lovers. Lovers, oh. Simu Liu, your dish has been granted. Before we get to it though, I do wanna start off with a traditional gong fu cha ceremony. Oh. And I know you are the master of gong fu. I have been known to be, yes. Yes, you are. And you also shot a movie where you were martial arts wizard. I can neither confirm or deny that. Have you ever done a gong fu cha ceremony before? I gotta say I haven't. A lot of people will get into it later in life because that's when we appreciate tea more. That's true. So it's not too late. And also, that also spoiled the movie. There's no gong fu cha ceremony in Shang-Chi. You heard it here first. Why you keep trying to trap me, Steven? God. But this tea will find its way back to you later. I don't wanna spoil anything. Like I can't spoil my movie, you can't spoil yours. It's true. Oh, man. We're gonna do two steeps. Each of them will be a minute long. You really know how to make a girl feel special. You're here for a show when pouring the tea. It's okay if you kinda get it outside like that. It helps get the clay pot looking nice and shiny. When you pour tea, some of the pours aren't all the same. So I'm gonna pour it out here first so you can see it all mixed together. And then I'll use this to pour into our respective ones. Look at that color. Oh, that tastes so good. So the second steep is known to be the more flavorful one. Slightly different color. Yeah. You know what? I think you need a little refreshment. There's some fruits for you to enjoy. What? Alongside the tea. Steven, is that sliced dragon fruit? It is. My goodness. Cheers. Mm. It's so light and subtle. Not too sweet. The ultimate Asian compliment. Yes, yes. Not too sweet. What's happening? Steven, what's happening? We got matcha for you. Oh, it's the real stuff. This is ceremonial grade matcha. Only the good stuff for you. Do you do this every day? Can I just move in with you? Do we need to tell the story of how we almost became roommates? Yes. And then what happened? A little guy named Walt Disney came along. Wait, was that around the same time? Was that pretty respectable? That was the reason why. We were gonna be roommates at one point. Like, I think our mutual and collective productivity would have just fallen off a cliff. That's true. Have you whisked matcha before? I have not. You want me to jump in? Yeah, jump in, jump in. Oh my God. Circular is good, and then also back and forth. You had me at matcha. Enjoy. Wow, that's good. Are you ready for the third act? I don't know, you tell me. Am I ready for the third act? Remember how Endgame was like 10 hours long? Just prepare yourself. I'm gonna start bringing stuff out. He's got like this whole thing. He's got a stove on a burner. I'm so excited right now. This has been a collective effort by everybody in the crew here. I gotta give credit to Molly, the artist. We've worked together on putting this together. Oh my God. Look at this. Dish granted boba shop with the Kim's convenience shout out. And I see that you were very generous with the pectorals and the biceps. What else do you have? What are you doing? Why are you cooking right now? You asked for it, we got it. Sugar. Oh my God. You were caramelizing the boba. That is your first layer, and that's going in here. Layer number two. Do you remember when I served you the fruit? It's come back? It's come back. Oh my God. We have right here, our dragon fruit marmalade. This is Steven Lim's on your left moment. You had mentioned you love the strawberry matcha latte at Boba Guys. So we actually just took the recipe, used those strawberries that you tasted earlier, turned that into a puree. Next up. You can tell he's really enjoying this. Black sesame oat milk. Oh my God. It's delicious. He's such a showman, this guy. Next up, the matcha you drank earlier, we're gonna bring it back. So we're gonna add charcoal into our matcha to provide you the top black layer of your beverage. Dude, I think you may have ruined boba for me. Remember the black tea that we had? So right here, we actually put a nice little dalgona black tea. And this is gonna go on top as your finisher. One more. What? I've never wanted to ever serve gold on a dish, but this felt appropriate. So we have gold flakes infused with chocolate flavor on top. Oh, sorry. One more thing. You know how when you're drinking boba in the ice matcha, you're like, oh man, I have watery boba. Well, no, that can be fixed by freezing black tea into ice tea so that when you drink and wait, it turns into more tea. You son of a bitch, that's genius. We're gonna assemble as they do. Nice. I see what you did there. Very nice. First up, boba. Just drop this right at the bottom of the cup. Perfect. Dragon fruit jam. He's killing it. Some would say he's a natural. Hey, what does my chair say? I mean, I didn't write that. Boba master. Thank you. We're gonna add this layer in. How's that? Oh, man. Our black sesame oat milk. It hadn't occurred to me that it would require such a delicate pour. Steven, I dare say you've outdone yourself. That's all we do here at Dish Granted. Just so you can see the color here. Nice. It's coming again. And last but not least, our gold flakes. Can I do some? Ooh! That felt great. It's your beverage. This is like a work of art. And I feel like I don't wanna touch it, but I also can't not touch it. That's the highest praise. If you don't wanna mess it up, but you wanna mess it up. Thank you. I'm sorry. Okay. We gotta go. We gotta mix up all the, oh, man. Mix it up. That's a beautiful color. Catch this shot right here. This should be slowly down. Wait, hang on, hang on. Okay, here we go. Yeah? You know, there's so many different ingredients and they all just work together so well. It's... Go for it, man. I taste the black sesame. I taste the caramelized boba. Ceremonial matcha. So this is the Shang-Chi boba. AKA the Simu. Mainly because of copyright issues and... The Simu. It's ostentatious. It's over the top. It's right on brand for me. But it's also very tasty. I wish that more people could have this experience of like sitting down and appreciating the tea that goes in a boba. I mean, do you want to do it? Because our friends over at Boba Guys, they're down to sell the drink. Really? That's right. So today, I have been introduced to the Simu. It was absolutely excellent. And on account of that, on account of not only presenting the drink, but taking me through an entire journey, I think that you are more than deserving of this gold star. Should I pin it to you? Should I just give it to you? How would Shang-Chi do it? Shang-Chi would like roundhouse kick it into you and it would just like, it would just stick. From a movie star, I got a star. You earned it, buddy. That has been it for season two. Season three comes very soon. Check out Shang-Chi. When does the movie come out? It comes out September 3rd. We'll all be there. Red carpet premiere, big deal. Oh, maybe your, I feel like your invite got lost in the mail. Oh, that's awkward. What? Oh, well, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'll see you there. I'm gonna keep drinking this. Keep drinking. Thank you. The ultimate Asian compliment, it's not too sweet.