Cantonese people love fresh fruit. As a culture, we’re not big on super sweet desserts, so we usually end meals with sliced oranges or other fruit. Oranges symbolize luck in Chinese culture, so they’re eaten often and even given as gifts during the holidays. I have fond memories of my mom washing, peeling, cutting and serving all sorts of fruits for us when we were kids, having already cooked and cleaned up after dinner, and Cantonese banquet dinners I’ve been to always end with a platter of cut oranges. 

At my restaurant, Bonnie’s, in Brooklyn, I thought it’d be cool to serve a fruit plate as a lighter dessert option since the only other one we have is a fried milk sundae. We always serve orange slices, as well as other fruits, including lychee, longan, star fruit, passion f...