Ming Wah Restaurant

Ming Wah is a family-owned place with incredibly friendly service, and the beef and broccoli is excellent. It's been a while since I last sat down in the dining room, but the food and the people are what I remember, and both are worth the trip.

The building on West Third was serving Chinese food as the Gung Ho by 1966, and the mid-century neon sign out front dates back to those years. King Chu and his son Yui Shek Chu reopened it as Ming Wah in 1977, and Kam Kwong has owned it since 1997, with most of the people working there family. When that sign came down in an April 2020 windstorm, Spokane noticed: a GoFundMe started by local artist Chris Bovey raised more than $15,000 toward a replacement that ran close to $40,000, and it was lit again by May 2021. The menu is classic American-Chinese — almond chicken, kung pao, combination chow mein, and the crab puffs regulars keep bringing up.

The caveat is the dining room. Ming Wah has run mostly as a takeout kitchen since the pandemic, so call ahead before you count on a table, and remember it's closed Mondays. None of that changes the food. Order a combination plate and you're eating what this corner has been handing across the counter for nearly fifty years.