Wow. This is one of those times I wish I'd looked at Yelp before I'd tried a place.... How does this place stay in business? We moved to Spokane last fall. I 've seen their commericals on TV, how can they afford television advertising when serving such terrible food? Traveling down Division one day after a trip to Northtown Mall, my boyfriend suggested Cathay Inn... I had my doubts as I'd seen the cheesy TV commercials...but decided to give the place a chance. As other reviewers mentioned, the place was clean, the decor was decent (for a locally owned place in Spokane) and there were several cars in the parking lot even at the early dinner hour of 5:30. So I figured, how bad can it be? Well, the bland chicken noodle soup I'm pretty sure came from a can that read Campbell's... I ordered the almond chicken, Cathay Special chow mein, and fried shrimp combo. (Dinner combo #6). I have never received such a huge plate of vastly unappetizing food in my life! I kept trying different things, trying to find SOMETHING on my plate that tasted good. UGH. I ended up eating the BBQ pork slices (grocery store quality) and a few pieces of the almond chicken. The fried rice was a strange color (dark brown) and had no taste. Everything else was greasy. The chicken and the shrimp were so overbreaded that I couldn't taste any meat! And my boyfriend's "General's Chicken" tasted like some old chicken cubes tossed with a mix of ketchup and BBQ sauce poured on it. Gross. We both ended the meal with most of our food still on our plates, and our waiter didn't even seem to notice. As my boyfriend pointed out on the way to our car, we just spent $30, when we could've just gone to someplace like Panda Express and gotten much better food for half the price! read more

One word: YUK. No matter what you order, it gonna be covered in this nasty low rent bbq sauce. I'm talking the cheap-o sauce you buy in the store for .69 cents a jug. I had the Mongolian beef and the wife had Beef and broccoli. BOTH dishes were covered with this nasty bbq sauce! Plus, the beef & broccoli was almost non existent, it had plenty of baby carrots and onions but no beef or broccoli. Maybe they should change the menu to "All the crappy bbq you can slurp, cause you ain't gonna get anything else!" Just another dumpy restaurant on division. read more

Where is the button that divides one star into fourths...I can't seem to find it. They advertise a LOT with a cute little song "come on in to the Cathay Inn"...the song is the most enjoyable thing about the place. All you really need to know that the food is the epitome of bland, americanized, generic soggy celery laden asian "cuisine" . I'm pretty sure I left out some commas there... it wasn't shocking to me that everyone there was either 85 years old or a chain smoker. It was night of the dead taste buds all around me. read more

Do not Order here. Not Good, Not Good,!! Went for take out today, first time in seven years, Bad thinking! I thought after this many years it might be better than years ago, BUT I was wrong, Bad Then, Bad Now, sorry.....Food was like eating very old leftovers, soup was poured down the drain as it deserved, Mongolian Beef followed, sorry but this stuff they serve would not clear a homeless shelter (their food may be basic but eatable), the food from this place should not be served to the Public, and should be shut down by the Health Dept. ... it is sooo bad. They need new stoves and new authentic "cooks". Again, do not throw away good money in these times for bad food read more

My wife and I were out, we were starved, and stopped in. I've been in Spokane for 4 years now (God knows, it's my own personal hell) and I've been to a few of the places around. This one is the worst. Over priced, crappy quality and pretty poor service. BELIEVE ALL THE REVIEWS YOU SEE ON THIS PLACE THAT ARE TWO STARS OR LESS. I'LL NEVER STEP FOOT IN THERE AGAIN. We have made this place our own personal "inside joke". Save yourself the pain of this experience. read more

My daughter summed it up best, "This was not a home-run." We liked the large Koi aquarium. The service was fast and very friendly. A few of the entrees were good: sweet and sour pork and lemon chicken. Everything else was "Meh" at best. There is no Coke, only Pepsi. (What is it with this town? is there a Pepsi conspiracy?) so we had the tea, which was not good. The water tasted funny. The fried rice was sub-par, the egg-drop soup was too salty to finish, but what took the cake was the chow mien which can best be describes as congealed vegetable slices served on hard noodles. They should also consider cleaning out the wishing well in the lobby. It seems a bit scummy. Overall, it was disappointing. Parts of the experience were nice, but we were hoping for better. read more

The food was good and the service was excellent. Restaurant was clean and employees followed safety guidelines. We'll definitely be back.

It was alright..... The food is edible but I've had much better. My parents were in town from Arizona and they wanted Chinese... I have never been to this establishment before and thought they could test it out with me. Thank goodness my parents are huge complainers because it really wasn't as good as I'd hoped. The service was friendly and fast but the food was odd looking and nothing spectacular. I actually don't remember it at all other than I ate it due to severe hunger. It's pricey but they have a pretty neat fish tank in the front lobby with gigantic coy.... (not that that's supposed to substitute for the mediocre meal but it's something) read more

Great food, staff are always helpful and friendly! Take out when ordered is always ready when they say;)

This is the best restaurant with good food and great customer service. The best server at the restaurant is Newt. She is amazing and so is the staff. I would recommend their restaurant for anyone looking for a good Chinese restaurant in Spokane. read more

I should have known not to try a place woth 2 stars, but I remembered this place being pretty good when I lived here before. Apparently a lot changes in nearly 11 years. Husband ordered the sweet and sour chicken, I got almond chicken. It's the same breaded chicken for both orders, just with whatever appropriate sauce. We also ordered egg drop soup. Service was the only remotely acceptable thing here, and that's being generous. Our server was friendly and took our order quickly, but she totally forgot about our soup and I had to remond her when she brought the food and asked if she could get us anything else. The soup wasn't that big of a deal in termsnof being forgotten. The flavor was decent, but it had an overabundance of peas in it. It's a good thing husband cancelled his order when it was forgotten, he would not have liked it at all. I don't know if its a regional thing, for instance - you can't find almond chicken made this way in Vegas (I tried for 10 years) - but when husband ordered the sweet and sour, he expected red sauce not a dark blackish sauce. He was able to eat some of it, but honestly, there was very little flavor to it. Same thing with the almond chicken. Both dishes were very bland and in the end, the meal wasn't worth the $30 tab. Portions are generous, but it's a mute point if the food isn't good. Either way, save your money and go elsewhere. read more

The potstickers were huge and very fresh. The food did take a little longer to come out but I did go during the dinner time rush. It was good and I'll probably come back again specially for those potstickers. read more

They don't understand the difference between chow mein and chop suey. I ordered chow mein and they gave me chop suey. I called back to get chow mein and they gave me chop suey again. Not great. read more

One of my favorite Chinese restaurants to go to. I don't go quite as often but every time I do, I always have a good time. The staff is friendly and super helpful, the restaurant is clean. It's always a good sign when the cooking staff is all Asian. Whenever I have friends that come into town to visit, we go to the Cathay Inn. Some dishes I recommend would be Liu's noodles, Combination Fried Rice, the dumplings (which are house made) are to die for! Apparently there is secret menu for a good burger. I know what you are thinking, "why go to a Chinese restaurant for a burger?" But it's good. I first saw someone order it and I asked the waitress what that was because I didn't see it anywhere on the menu. She said it was the owner's special dish. read more

We dropped by our favorite spot today for lunch and once again, we were not disappointed. Stephanie and her crew always make us feel welcome. The food has never disappointed us and we have eaten here of 70 times. The servers are available and right on top of everything. If I could, I would eat here more often. We alway plan to eat here when we are in town around lunch and my wife seems to make sure that that is a regular experience. Good people. read more

This is about my 3rd time eating here and today was by far the best thanks to server 13 (older woman , short blond hair and glasses) she was amazing and introduced me to a dish I would have never seen and that I've never had that was exactly my type of meal. She seriously was the best ever! I hope she's there on my next visit . Thanks to her , my mouth is burning and that's exactly what I want. read more

Service was really awful. Food was ok. Marginal on the high side. Not much taste in Amy of the food. Kind of looked and tasted all the same. Lunch specials are very limited and even if you are willing to pay additional cost they are quite stick about substitutions. I won't rush back. read more

My favorite Chinese restaurant. Theres a server here that has worked here for 29 years and she is wonderful! I always look forward to comming here. I never like almond chicken and sweet and sour pork until I came here, amazing! read more

Bland and sad excuse for "Chinese food!" I was so disappointed I wanted to call them back and demand a refund for the bucket of grease they sold me. The container was so overwhelmed it left puddles everywhere and had no flavor. This place is consistently disappointing in terms of food and subpar service. I can never tell if they're understaffed or just don't care. I was roped in on a lunch order and we were initially going to a solid joint that is always consistent but chose this over one person's last minute opinion due to price of the other place. Don't make the same mistake we did. We ordered off the lunch menu and were charged dinner prices on a few dishes as well. If you don't have a palate or a standard for service, you'll love Cathay Inn. So much more needs to be said but I would be wasting my time, much like the money we wasted. read more

1st time trying and won't come back. I ordered the special pan fried noodles but they brought me cold chow mein noodles that looked like old leftovers. The pineapple chicken equals old KFC chicken topped with Winco canned pineapples. Need I say more? Try at your own risk, or take this advice from an Asian woman who knows Asian food. read more

I love the food. I've been going there since I was a kid. Nice staff and clean tables. But I really miss the fish tank they had there. That was the highlight when you went inside. Everything is just perfect. But the prices. They're just too damn high. $14 for a small plate. I might get a plate as a to go order if I have some money and I'm craving it every once in a while but stopping in on a regular basis whenever I'm in Spokane just isn't gonna do. The plates are a lot smaller in portion. Which I don't like. You're paying too much for something that's not worth a small portion. If it were like a big dinner plate, I'd say ok but the almond chicken dish, unless it's bigger in size, it's just a ripoff. Sad too cos I'm in love with it read more

I was in town last week, visiting family. This is one of my mom's favorite places and I must admit on previous visits I enjoyed it too. However, this time, I ordered the Sweet and Sour chicken, I've had this dish prepared many different ways, but nothing like this before.I swear the 'sweet and sour' sauce was a mix of BBQ sauce and Catsup. I was polite, because I was with family, but I threw my 'leftovers 'away the moment I left the place. Its a pity, I DON'T LIKE giving a bad review, because the staff are great as is the service, just don't eat the food! Sadly, that's the reason we went there in the first place!! read more

Been coming here for years. Every time I come here I am always greeted by very friendly staff. Love the food. Great service and they work very fast and don't make us wait very long for our food. Love this place! read more

We ordered to go, and didn't have to wait long at all. I usually don't eat Chinese food, because I am MSG intolerant. However, the staff was will point out what you can get that doesn't have MSG and let you know what is possible to make without it. I was skeptical, because Chinese restaurants notoriously claim they don't use MSG, but it's in most of their sauces. Cathay actually gave me a complete MSG free meal (lemon chicken, fried prawns, fried egg roll, white rice, and egg flour soup). The soup lacked any real flavor, but everything else was delicious. read more

If I could give this place "0" Stars..I would. Okay..i'm Chinese, and grew up in a Chinese household, and have been to Hong Kong on many occasions. So I hope that gives me some credit to knowing what is and what isn't good chinese food. Okay..the only thing good at this restaurant is the service (fast and friendly), and the environment is cleaner than your typical hole in the wall chinese joint (which usually has the best and most authentic food). The food here is horrible, well unless you're a huge fan of Panda Express. But I'll say Panda Express is to chinese food, like Taco Bell is to Mexican, or Dominos is to Italian food. If you want panda express quality chinese food, you shouldn't have to pay $15-30 for it. Honestly the safeway chinese food is better than Cathay Inns. I think the only reason why there are chinese people working at Cathay Inn is because they are secretly laughing at all their customers in the back knowingly serving crappy chinese food for outrageous prices. If you want decent chinese food in Spokane (I say decent because you just can't find "Good" chinese food in spokane) got to New Harbour a little down the road. Yes, it's a little hole-in-the-wall, but again those places have the best chinese food. I recommend the Beef Chow fun there. If you're a fan of Egg Foo Yung and Sweet and Sour Everything...go to panda express. ~G read more

The service was good, but the deal breaker was the food. Worst Chinese food ever! It was soggy, tasteless, mush. Don't go here.

I grew up in the Spokane area where the Cathay Inn is a landmark. I'd been living in the Bay Area of California for almost 7 years, but finally ate here since moving home 2 months ago. Now I know that I wasn't missing anything by not eating here before. Is this REALLY what Spokanites thing GOOD Chinese food is?!?! Maybe my palette is just spoiled from actual, real Chinese food while living in the Bay Area. Either way, this place is NASSSSTY! Although, I have to say, the waitress was pretty nice and very helpful. Sorry, but sweet & sour sauce is NOT supposed to be black!! Real chow mein does not consist of those stale, crunchy noodles you can by in a bag at Safeway. The General's chicken was very dry. The broccoli with beef was very slimy. Ick. Ick. Ick!!! BTW, the Cathay Inn runs commercials on TV proclaiming that they are "Spokane's Best Chinese food for 54 years". How the eff has this place been in business that long with serving such horrible food?! Grossss! Save yourself the cash and check out the Red Dragon up on Francis and Nevada. Way better food. read more

We have ALWAYS had excellent service from Newt!!! We have been coming here for 18 yrs and have never had a bad meal! Prices have definitely increased over the years but wrll worth the cost. We won't go to any other Chinese place if we can't go to Cathay! =) read more

I was just talking to my friends the other day about how awful this place was when we went back when I went to Gonzaga. The food is bland and weird and somewhat expensive. Panda Express actually blows this place out of the water and for a lot less money. Avoid! read more

My roomie and I went to Cathay Inn with no preconceived notions of it being good or bad, and were only rewarded with amazing pot stickers. We both ordered typical dishes that weren't anything to even say "mmm" about. We ordered the pot stickers as an app, and didnt get it will after our meals were done. They take a LONG time to make by hand, and our server didn't bother to tell us, so we ended up having the best for last. Prices were ok, but the food wasn't grea read more

When my best friend moved to Utah, Cathay Inn's sweet and sour chicken is what she missed the most. I can't blame her, there is nothing like it. The good news is it travels well and we converted her friends down there too. read more

I've been coming here since I was a teenager and as such I am a bit nostalgic over it. Let me be clear: you will not receive anything groundbreaking from the menu, it's simple and classic Americanized Chinese food that's done consistently and is tasty. Yes, it's fried. That's why this country embraced the whole idea generations ago, and there's a certain charm to that. For me, visiting Cathay Inn when I'm in town is just comforting. That's probably why they're successful in spite of some of the disappointed visits cataloged here. That and the catchy jingle. read more

We have always had a great experience and great food at Cathay Inn. Most recently we scheduled a last minute birthday part there. It was supposed to be for 20 and ended up being 30. Cathay Inn was very accommodating. The service and food for our event was awesome. We served Egg Rolls, BBQ Pork, Special Chow Mein, Fried Rice and then the choice of Almond Fried Chicken, Sweet & Sour Chicken or General Chicken. read more

Best Chinese in Spokane. Warning...their sweet and sour sauce is different than any you've tried. It's not the red-orange sauce that tastes the same whether you're at a spendy restaurant or a grocery store deli...it has a dark color and our family prefers their sauce over any we've had before. We highly recommend the sweet and sour pork, fried prawns, and bbq pork. We've come to enjoy Dinner F with the s&s pork substituted for the ribs read more

I was in Spokane for work and did not want to wait 45 minutes at Tomato Street. The Cathay Inn looked inviting, there were quite a few cars in the parking lot and it has been there for years. We decided to give it a try. Yuck, bland greasy food. The kind of Chinese food you'd get in middle America in the 50's. We barely touched it. You can do better. read more

How I wish I'd looked at the reviews before ending up here . . . by choice! Let me see, how can I say this. Yuck! I am new to Spokane and unfortunately having to "try" everything to see what's good and what's not. This place . . . definitely lands on the NOT list. Let's start with the decor OUTDATED! Reminded me of an assisted living dining room. (This may explain the food.) I should have walked out when I saw that hamburgers were on the menu. I ended up with the lunch special, General Chicken, Fried Rice, BBQ Pork and a Spring Roll. All of which is subject to interpretation. The food bore no resemblance to any chinese food I've ever had and I've eaten in some of the better Chinese restaurants in Washington, DC, Los Angeles and CHINA! The fried rice tasted like overcooked minute rice with soy sauce. The Spring Roll had no flavor. Ketchup and mustard were delivered with my lunch, presumably to go with the egg roll? The BBQ Pork (all three slices of it) was stone cold and dry with zero flavor. Lastly the General Chicken. Overcooked, dry chicken smothered and oversaturated with some type of red, sweet and spicy (I use loosely) sauce. It resembled what you would expect when you mix ragu with Tobasco. Although I found chili flakes in the sauce, they must have been cleansed of the spice and flavor befor landing in the concoction. Normally I would order a soda, but at $2.75 I declined. They should be giving away drinks to wash down the awful food they serve. Shameful to classify this restaurant as Chinese. read more

Wish I would have read the reviews before ordering. When I was younger, my family and I would visit this restaurant often and loved everything about it. I moved to the valley and eventually found a new Chinese joint. But, since I work downtown, I chose to order lunch today. Service was amazing for my to go order. The staff was very nice and even called me back about a substitution they needed clarification on. Once I got my food, I could not believe the difference a few years make. The food was just awful. Cheapest ingredients they could have scrounged up. I swear the chicken noodle soup, is Campbell's out of the can, or possibly even a generic. The chow mien was a sloppy mess with stale crunchy noodles. The beef in the "special" chow mien was bottom of the barrel meat and the noodles had no flavor. My lemon chicken came with sweet and sour sauce. The only good part was the egg flower soup. Delicious! But cup was only filled half way. I ended up throwing over half of my food in the garbage. Very sad... No wonder the dining area was empty. It used to be jam packed, always! read more

I've lived on Providence since I was a baby (40+ years) and there are other chinese spots in town, but the Cathay Inn is the BEST! I just ordered the No. 8 and it's absolutely delicious :) love this place and I hope it will be around for many more years. Thanks for making me and my stomach happy, Cathay Inn! read more

I enjoyed the experience of this place ,from the time you walk through the door your senses are delighted.First there is the giant see through fish tank with exotic fish, simply beautiful,the fish were a delight. next if you take a moment to look up there are beautifully painted oriental scenes in soft colors potraying the seasons, softly lit by a skylight. There are pillars of lavender that lead you into an expansive clean dining area with some private seating areas. Being that it was lunch tme we ordered the luncheon special Almond Chicken with rice and chow mien. The food was fresh and delicious, the service was superb. I would recomend this to any one for a fine dining experience. read more

We found the food to be exquisite. The dumplings were to die for. The menu is very extensive. Anyone who thinks this place is bad needs to go back to Panda Express. read more