Ingredients: Rice, seaweed, lobster tempura, onion, orange tobiko (fish eggs), mayonnaise

Preparation: Cooked, inside-out

Popularity: Feh.

Not an item found in many sushi bars, the lobster roll tends to be made using lobster tempura rather than raw lobster, simply because raw shellfish is often a bad idea.

The roll is made inside-out style, and though our default lobster roll recipe uses onions and mayo on the inside and orange flying fish roe on the outside (to give that orange cooked lobster look), there’s no hard and fast rules about what might make a good lobster roll.

Cucumber? Avocado? Nothing but meat?

Really, it’s going to come down to the ingenuity of the sushi chef at hand, but don’t be fooled by the presence of lobster into paying a ridiculous amount for the dish – you’re really only going to get a thin strip of lobby meat worth maybe $4 beyond the standard sushi roll price.

Ingredients: Rice, seaweed, cream cheese, scallions, smoked salmon, cucumber, avocado, sometimes onion

Preparation: Inside-out

Popularity: Moderate 

Named after the home of Philly cream cheese, this Americanized sushi dish would almost be an hors d’oeuvre, if not for the seaweed and rice.

Made inside-out (or in the Urumaki style, as such sushi is known), and usually topped with sesame seeds or flying fish roe, the cream cheese replaces the usual Japanese mayonnaise in this mild dish, with the flavor of the smoked salmon making its presence felt in no uncertain terms.