A respite from the North End's endless pasta parade--and one of the city's top Asian dining experiences.. The Scene
First-time diners will experience a bit of culture shock: This award-winning pan-Asian spot sits on the edge of the overwhelmingly Italian North End. Once that's past, however, it's easy to succumb to this restaurant's charms. Patrons take their pick of seating in the bright, comfy sushi bar, an attractive, quiet dining room or the upbeat bar, whose tall windows open out onto the street. Service in all corners is quick and efficient.

The Food
The lengthy menu (which features hints of Malaysian and Thai cooking techniques) gives neighborhood patrons and business diners a welcome break from the area's countless pasta joints. After starting off with a few selections from the top-shelf sushi bar (try a delightfully fresh Boston Maki roll), diners choose from familiar favorites like spare ribs, Hong Kong-style sweet-and-sour chicken and yellow-fin tuna teriyaki. Quality is high across the board, while prices won't break the bank.…

Terrible Service. What has happened to customer service? Every time our office has ordered from Billy Tse, there has been a mistake with the order. Today was nothing new. And when I called to discuss it with them, the person answering the phone actually yelled at me and said that it was our mistake, not theirs. We had ordered a total of 7 lunch specials. We did receive 7, but they weren't the 7 that we ordered. Luckily, only 1 was wrong, but they still refused to correct it. Instead, the woman on the phone just yelled at me and said maybe next time someone else should call and/or we should fax our order as proof but that they didn't make mistakes.…

Sporadically bad sushi. Since this is one of the only sushi places near the North End, I went there fairly often when I lived in the area and needed a break from Italian subs. I found the sushi was good (not amazing) most of the time, however there were a couple times when the sushi was quite bad (the tuna was turning brown and the fish was beginning to smell). The only hypothesis I could come up with is that they probably don't get fish delivered fresh on the weekends (I think both times the sushi was bad, it was a Sunday). This is an ok sushi place if you're in the area, but definitely not a destination for good sushi... and avoid Sundays.…

Fast delicious take-out. Excellent Thai Chicken Noodles, Billy Tse's Chicken, Rice, and Chicken fingers. In 8 visits, that's all I've gotten to so far! It's fast, portions are big and hot, and value is average. Enough to keep me coming back every other week.…

Very good sushi and Chinese. I'm exceptionally picky about Chinese food and sushi (my father is a chef trained by Joyce Chen), and Billy Tse's passes the muster on both. Service is adequate, management and servers are both friendly. They use fresh ingredients and make good sauces. The sushi is straightforward, but reasonable in price for the quality and location (you expect to pay more downtown).…

Why so popular?. I really don't see what's so incredibly great about this restaurant. When I went the service was horrible; the food took forever to be served. The food was also definitely not worth the expensive price. Maybe I just had a bad dining experience, but I truly believe that there are many better Chinese restaurants out there.…