Some people may feel that with names like hamachi, ika, maguro, ebi and unagi, sushi is all Greek to them. But in fact, it’s about as Japanese as you can get in these parts — and most anywhere else, for that matter — and well worth its unusual-sounding names.

Charted as far back as the 4th century B.C. in Southeast Asia, sushi — salted in that incarnation with fermented rice for preserving — was embraced for its high protein quality, with the rice jettisoned before consuming.

In the 1987 movie “Wall Street,” Daryl Hannah and (yep!) current bad boy Charlie Sheen deftly prepared sushi with a nouveau-riche-yuppie sushi machine as a kind of culinary foreplay (we know how that turned out). But here in Auburn, Wei Li restaurant chef/owner Cam Luu added sushi last summer to the menu of his Chinese restaurant largely because he cared about the health of the community, not to mention his own.

Born in Saigon and quickly emigrating to China and then California as a child in the late 1970s, the multicultural Luu learned to cook in a baptism-by-fire scenario when a chef/relative left Wei Li unexpectedly six or seven years ago — just a few years after Luu opened the restaurant in 2002.

Assuming the kitchen position, and choosing to swim against the tide of the “more for less” Chinese buffets that seem to be everywhere, Luu infused his separate “healthy menu” recipes with ingredients like local-farm-grown vegetables and choice fresh meat, chicken and fish. Distinguishing his small Chinese restaurant from the area’s crush of 22 Asian establishments, Wei Li — which loosely translated means “good personality with success” — was even voted among the top 100 Chinese restaurants in the U.S.

“My thinking is that in order to accomplish something, you need to have a healthy body and mind,” Luu, who is 36, said of his foray into the high-protein, health-conscious sushi arena. Practicing martial arts, running at Bates College in summer and taking up snowboarding last winter, he admits that when he first started exercising, he couldn’t keep up.

Offering himself up as the proverbial sacrificial lamb, and at first glance contrary to the healthy tenets by which he lives, Luu revealed he gained 10 pounds in three months in pursuit of the perfect sushi for his restaurant. Returning to California to learn the precise sushi-making art and craft, he then tried “fish after fish after fish” upon his return to Maine to “find just the right taste” and determine what kind of seafood to stock.

“It was a lot of lean meat,” he explained of his frenetic fish fest, noting that most of the weight gain was muscle, as he was exercising at the same time.

Luu said that at the outset of his sushi quest, he and his wife, Yuli, traveled back and forth to Boston on a fish-finding-and-delivery mission. “We introduced ourselves to True World Foods, a Japanese company that delivers to several restaurants in Portland,” he said. “But there’s no Japanese restaurant between there and Augusta, so now we drive down to Portland to meet their trucks and drive the ingredients back here.” All ingredients Wei Li uses are from the U.S., and most local.

With his presence also required in the kitchen, Luu passed the sushi-making mantle to his very capable wife. Yuli arrived here from China in the late ’90s without speaking a word of English, quickly got her GED, and is now a master’s degree candidate, not to mention working 40 hours a week as a host and skilled sushi chef.

While Luu identified a small core of Lewiston-Auburn epicureans who know and appreciate sushi, he admits it’s a challenge educating diners who don’t fathom the culture of raw fish. “It takes time, but it will happen,” he affirmed. In fact his own daughters, Katie, 11, and Mai, 7, prefer “spaghetti and anything Italian” to a round of tekka maki (tuna with seaweed, or nori, outside).

Sushi is the general name for raw tuna, salmon, yellow tail, shrimp, tilapia, squid or other seafood with vinegared rice. When the dish involves sliced fish without rice, it is called sashimi. When rolled in seaweed — often accompanied by cucumber, carrot or avocado — it’s called makizushi.

Unlike much of the American diet, which is fraught with fat, sugars, preservatives, artificial flavors, dyes and other additives, sushi is usually unadulterated. And because it’s usually not cooked, it doesn’t leech valuable vitamins and nutrients often lost when heat is applied to food.

Accompanied by pungent wasabi (Japanese horseradish), thinly sliced ginger and soy sauce, sushi aficionados appreciate its velvety quality and fresh, clean taste, along with the kind of guilt-free eating associated with lean meats or fish and fresh vegetables.

“I started because I enjoy Japanese food and knew this would be a great opportunity for us,” Luu said of Wei Li’s sushi (ad)venture. “And if you eat healthy and exercise regularly, you will have the energy to do better work.”

945 Center St., Auburn

Telephone: 344-0022

http://weilirestaurant.com/

Hours: Tuesday-Thursday 11 a.m.-8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sunday 11:30 a.m.-8 p.m.; closed Mondays