WENATCHEE — It ain’t your daddy’s egg foo young.

At Wenatchee’s second-generation Asian restaurants, the artful platters of fresh sushi and steaming bowls of pho, an aromatic Vietnamese soup, are wowing adventurous palates with intriguing new tastes and exotic ingredients not usually found on standard meat-and-noodle menus.

The creative young managers of the recently opened venues say they aim to serve high-flavor dishes that are fresh, healthy and continually surprising to Wenatchee Valley diners seeking new foods, new tastes and new dining experiences.

In other words, no more traditional almond-fried chicken, tasty as it might be. Instead, eel, seaweed, multi-colored fish roe, dilled lotus root, shaved calabash and dozens of other unusual and enticing fixings are spicing up offerings at restaurants on both sides of the Columbia River.

“The real surprise is how eager our customers are to try new things,” said Amy Chen, 23, one of the managers at Iwa Sushi & Grill, the stylish new Japanese restaurant in downtown Wenatchee. “They say to us, ‘Make me something new and fun,’ and we do our best to please them.”

A good example, she said, is the Tiger Roll, not yet on the menu and usually made to order for regular customers who crave something different. The lavish, multi-striped dish includes a combination of spicy tuna, yellowtail, salmon and eel, all sprinkled with masago (fish roe), crunch (crushed buckwheat noodle) and crisscrossed with stripes of spicy mayonnaise and eel sauce.

“First it pleases the eye,” Chen said, “then it pleases the tongue.”

Lee Maytrychitt, 27, one of the managers and owners of Spring Lotus, North Wenatchee’s strikingly designed Vietnamese restaurant, said their chefs emphasize eye-appeal and fresh taste in almost every dish. For instance, a serving of the restaurant’s spring rolls — a customer favorite containing shrimp, rice noodles, wonton and other ingredients wrapped in rice paper — arrives in a flamboyant display of lettuce leaves and shredded vegetables.

If the whole dish seems bulging with texture and color, that’s intentional, said Maytrychitt. “We like people to eat first with their eyes, to have the visual experience,” she said. “Then enjoy the taste.”

The emphasis on visual impact brings a flashy, almost urban flair to more traditional menus that satisfied local Asian-food fans for decades.

“This is definitely different, almost pan-Asian in the way the recipes are a changing mix of fresh ingredients and spices,” said Maytrychitt, a member of the restaurant-running Maytrychitt family that owns Mai Lee Thai Restaurant and the Wasabi Sushi Bar, both in East Wenatchee.

And both restaurants see change — on the menu, by the season — as a key ingredient in keeping customers curious and engaged in the Asian dining experience.

Kylie Qiu, 27, also a manager at Iwa, said, “Changing the menu is part of how we’ll do business to make it more exciting. By the new year, we’ll be adding more items, shifting around others, trying new things. It keeps it fun for us and for our customers.”

Spring Lotus partner and manager Chun La, 32, said the restaurant’s menu will start soon to shift with the seasons — cooler dishes like spring rolls and salads in the summer, warmer and spicier dishes like pho and curries in winter. Shortly, the dessert menu will expand, too, both to satisfy the diners’ sweet tooth and to introduce a broader array of post-dinner delights.

“We have lots of ideas for desserts,” he smiled.

Mike Irwin: 665-1179

irwin@wenatcheeworld.com