Here’s the Menu. Open up and pick your poison. Not that we serve poison here.
The Menu offers an array of fourteen deliciously disturbing tales of dining horror from around the world. Are you ready to discover the dark secrets behind the menus and the people who serve them?
Beware: these stories are not for the faint of heart or anyone with a weak stomach.
From dread delivered to the door, fine dining disasters, and fright served with a side of fries, you’re about to embark on a genuinely twisted buffet that’ll satisfy and horrify. And sometimes, the ghastliest thing is not what is on the plate but who is sitting across from you.
Satisfy your appetite for fright. Bon appétit!
Dark bleatings, my lovely tribe! Today I’m reviewing a themed short story collection, The Menu. First of all, I absolutely love the concept. It reminded me of the film, The Menu (which I’m currently obsessed with), in its construction. The cover is sort of clean and fresh-looking, but with that lovely side of blood to indicate something is amiss, and I got a kick out of the creativity with the table of contents infusing the theme. The book is in sections as you would see on a food menu, with little foody descriptions of some of the stories. Additionally, most of the stories have something food/drink related in the wording. My only criticism of an otherwise excellently executed theme is that the titles weren’t entirely consistent. The majority of them were food related but then the odd couple weren’t, and in a book so carefully put together it was both noticeable and a bit perplexing to me. Not a detail that ruined the overall experience though, by any means.
In terms of the stories, like most of the collections I’ve recently reviewed, I enjoyed around half of them and found that the other half weren’t my cup of tea (that’s just a taste thing, topics-wise, I think). My only other general nit-picks are that the character motivations felt a bit off to me at times, and now and then the writing could have done with a little tighten up here and there. An example of what I mean by this as that phrases like “blood-curdling scream” came up in several stories, whereas in others, the writing was much more creative, so I know the author has many more feathers in his cap.
My favourite stories were:
KILLER SAUCE
Patrick, a food delivery driver, makes a stop at a house he’s familiar with because he knows the family. What he finds is… not the peaceful weekend family bonding time he expects. What lies through that front door is utter death and carnage, and just one lone survivor. I loved where this one went!
EVIL OBSESSION
Kam’s restaurant has been knocked off its top spot with the locals, thanks to a new rival place. Kam takes drastic measures to restore the restaurant’s former glorious title. This was a great story that had a lovely folklore feel to it!
THE STRANGER
A mysterious, dangerous stranger holds everyone in a diner hostage. No one knows why, though the stranger clearly has their reasons. This was my favourite story in the collection because it was so unpredictable, and I really loved the ending!
Overall, this collection was a mixed bag for me, but I mostly enjoyed it! I’d recommend it to fans of themed horror collections, and general horror fans. If you’d like to check out the book or author, there are some links below for you:
Happy Goat Horror 
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