Philadelphia roll with smoked salmon, cream cheese and avocado. Dragon roll with shrimp tempura topped with eel. Geisha roll with tuna, salmon, Tobiko and Ponzu sauce. These are just a few of the names found on the menu of Ayaka Japanese Restaurant on South University Avenue.

Sang Paik, head chef at Ayaka, carefully cuts and prepares the fish that will go into these rolls. He works in silence, with his head bowed at the neck and an expression of intense focus painted on his face. His hand methodically moves the blade as he chops and peels, chops and peels, all the while making sure to greet and bid farewell to every customer. He makes his work look simple, but in reality, this couldn’t be further from the case. After all, the work of a sushi chef takes the utmost precision and dedication.

Sushi is a traditional form of Japanese food that varies in style and taste depending on the region. According to Paik’s wife and Ayaka's owner, Kazumi Paik, the popular Osaka style of sushi is known for its variety in ingredients, while the Tokyo style is known for its seasonings.

But the basic process of sushi rolling begins with the fish. Sashimi, a plain fish, and nigiri, a fish with rice, are the two original kinds of sushi. Yet according to LSA senior and Sushi.com waiter Isaac Kim, the most popular form of sushi in this country is maki, or rolls. This contrasts with Japan, where the customary sashimi and nigiri continue to dominate the sushi scene.

“(Maki) is more of an American thing,” Kim said. “But by now (in this country), it’s all just sushi.”

As a town known for its cultural diversity, Ann Arbor boasts a vibrant sushi scene — evidenced by the numerous sushi bars and restaurants littering the edge of campus. Though a lot of things have changed about the practice of making sushi through its transplantation from Japan to America, some of its original attributes are still present today in Ann Arbor — most notably gender distribution of sushi chefs.

“In Japan, it’s much more traditional to have men as sushi chefs,” Kazumi Paik said.

This custom has its roots in the old Japanese thinking that men, by nature, have a lower body temperature than women, making their hands cooler. Thus, when men touch the fish, they’re transporting the least amount of heat.

“When you make sashimi or nigiri, you’re supposed to touch it the least amount of times as possible,” Kim said. “That’s also why the portions are so small. As opposed to serving sushi in large quantities, you’re supposed to eat it in small portions so you can eat it quickly before it gets warm.”

The process of making sushi differs from restaurant to restaurant, but there are a few common trends.

“First we make the sticky rice,” said Haeri Lee, manager of Totoro on State Street. “Then we marinate and mix it in with a special vinegar sauce. Once this is done, we roll it in seaweed, and finally you can add whatever you want, like salmon or tuna.”

The important part comes with the preparation — sushi can either be of excellent or poor quality depending on the way it’s treated and cut, especially when it comes to the raw fish itself.

“The way you can tell the quality of a sushi chef is by how he cuts the fish, and by the color,” Kim said. “A lot of our chefs make the rolls, but only a couple are allowed to make the nigiri and sashimi.”

Sushi is seasonal and thus depends upon external factors for quality and quantity. Whether a restaurant has a certain fish in stock is largely reliant on the popularity of a certain item and its availability.

“What a lot of people don’t know about sushi restaurant culture is that just because an item is on the menu doesn’t mean it’s really there. There are different seasons for different fish,” Kim said. “Certain fish are what one might call an acquired taste, like sea urchin, and these are really expensive.