Start your story with someone looking at a restaurant menu.

Posted in Middle School on Nov 1, 2022

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✍️ 80 stories

“Roger Reads the Menu” by Story Time

Submitted to Contest #162

Do not order the salmon. I know it sounds good, Aurelia, but it’s not. It’s not good. Nothing here is good. Some things are bad and some are unspeakable. Order something bad. I can’t promise you good. I wish I could, but no good. No good. None of it is good. The salmon, however, is unforgivable. We wouldn’t even be here if not for family obligations. My brother insists he’s a chef. I disagree, but I do so privately. That’s how I was raised. When you’re brought up in a monastery by monks operating under the oath of silence, you learn to...

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“101 Dosas” by Suma Jayachandar

Submitted to Contest #162

Dosa has been a constant in my life ever since I got the first explosion of Andhra gunpowder in my mouth. It is steadfast, satisfying, and never leaves a bitter aftertaste. Today, I need to order something big. Like a 4-foot-long dosa, with a bucketful of sambar, a mound of mashed potato, and four types of chutney. To celebrate my release from the clutches of a salad-munching witch, who snorted gingerly every time she rode on my pillion to this hallowed hall. I look at the menu of 101 Dosas, even though I know it like the back of my hand by ...

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“Petal” by Chris Campbell

Submitted to Contest #162

I sat with my back to the wall farthest away from the door. I knew she was close. I could smell her flowery perfume a mile away. When you expect the hit, you make sure as hell you can see it coming. Some say it’s best not to look. To just finish your last supper and wait, staring at the wall. They say the stress ruins your dinner, like a lamb led visibly to slaughter. Food never tastes good when stressed but judging by the selections in the menu gently placed on my table, I figure the food here tastes the same… dead. Keeping my eyes peeled o...

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“Drowning, hope” by Salmah Ahmed

Submitted to Contest #162

CW: natural disasterAslam sucked on his lower lip, concentrating hard, as a rogue wind lashed against a glossy pamphlet in his scrubby hands. It was a menu card from the recently pulverised Rose Honeymoon Hotel in Swat, Pakistan. He had memorised it better than the multiplication tables he was made to rote learn in school under the auspicious rosewood cane his tutor, Shahab Gul, (known tyrant for all ten year old dissidents like him) held like an extension of his arm. It was auspicious because Aslam had so far escaped its imminent wrath.He r...

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“Susana in Recovery” by Melissa Taylor

Submitted to Contest #162

TW: Mental health; addiction; abuse of powerThere were too many choices, it was overwhelming. I thought about the advice Gordon Ramsay always gave the owners of the restaurants he was trying to rescue. Trim the menu down, do fewer things and do them well.When the waiter came to take our orders, I panicked and ordered a Caesar salad with grilled chicken. Pretty hard to screw that up. Lance ordered a rare ribeye steak which would undoubtedly be over or under cooked. I would have to listen to him complain about it all evening. Fantastic. T...

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“How Junior Mints Changed My Life” by Jeannette Miller

Submitted to Contest #162

I was too hungry to decide and I knew it. I knew I should have said something earlier but I didn’t want to come off as high maintenance and yet here I was, dangerously close to blowing my top out of hangriness. There are too many freaking choices on menus nowadays and why don’t any of them have a special section of just a few items for people who are too hungry to choose? But instead of actual food items, they list the emotion you’re feeling at the time. You choose the emotion and they bring out the correlating food. No more guesswork. Lik...

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“A Meal of Memories” by Francois Kosie

Submitted to Contest #162

{Content warning: it’s about death, and also memories.}The ghostly flesh of my spirit feels fragile and insubstantial, but still, I'm struck by the mustiness of the old restaurant, and I realize that the senses of taste and smell stubbornly remain and will be the last to go."Your table is ready, sir. Please follow me," a dreadful attendant says in a deep rumbling voice that sends a shudder through my ghostly being. I dare not look at him directly as I follow him.Inside the restaurant, everything exists only in dimly lit shades of bronze and ...

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“A story bite” by Ela Mikh

Submitted to Contest #162

“Excuse me, Miss, can I trouble you for a menu?”Janie nodded absentmindedly, rushing by a new customer who had just planted his butt in the only empty seat left in the corner by the window. She paused by the kitchen grabbing a few plates and drinks for a couple that was intimately cuddling in the corner, pretending like they were the only ones in the place. They were nauseatingly happy and Janie felt a wave of jealousy rising in her whenever she passed by them. Her own forever love affair ended as quickly as it started just a week earlier so...

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“01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110101” by Karen McDermott

Submitted to Contest #162

Hyper-seasonal special Fungi-To-Be-With Straight from head chef Marlene Bartley’s vegetable garden/acres of woodland (a land guaranteed protected from the radiation after effects, being as it is covered a magnificent dome of state-of-the-art disease-resistant toughened glass), we are delighted to present a creamy vitamin-enriched garlic mushroom risotto peppered with crispy crickets, who reach your plate after spending their best days in our patented Bug Hotels, with prior counselling as to the benefit they will be serving greater life for...

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“Gurn, Baby, Gurn” by Jim Firth

Submitted to Contest #162

To gurn: to snarl as a dog; to look savage; to distort the countenance.The evening before the world gurning finals, I was looking for a reasonably priced restaurant in Egremont, Cumbria, when I peered through the window of a curry house and saw Barry Jenkins scarfing down a bhuna. Distractedly, I perused the menu, but I knew I wouldn't be dining at that particular restaurant, because he was there. Anyhow, the menu was full of inauthentic anglicised fair; curries that had been adapted for milder palettes, with dishes like Tikka Masalas and ko...

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“CAF- The Italian Job” by Monu Singh

Submitted to Contest #162

The waiter at Gusto 101 stood waiting, staring at me as I flipped through the menu several times, stopping at the Cacio e Pepe each time. I wouldn't mind one of their grilled entrees served with escarole, cannellini, beans, and a lemony, garlicky salmoriglio sauce. The restaurant offers one of the finest Italian classics, yet each dish seems out of reach, looking at the price tags next to them. "Rob, don't you dare order a big meal. We are all starving here." Sam was reading my mind watching me from the neighboring building, seated w...

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“The Old Weight of Love” by Brittany Mackeown

Submitted to Contest #162

A wrinkled menu from Punjabi Place sat out on the counter, tucked between a cutting board and the stovetop. In poor handwriting, a short list of ingredients had been written next to palak paneer, denoting the ingredients for homemade tikka masala sauce. Some of the ink had rubbed off from handling, but all of the ingredients were still legible. Navya squinted at the ingredients. They were all correct, and even though tikka masala wasn’t even close to her favorite “Indian” (tikka masala was more British-Indi...

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“The Food Critic” by Greg Gillis

Submitted to Contest #162

He sat at a small, wooden table near the front window of the bistro. The sunlight reflected off the effervescence in his sparkling water, creating a prism of color cast along the white tablecloth as he scanned the menu items for l'appétit, a quaint French restaurant near the outskirts of town. Charles Heatherington was considered to be one of the most sought-after food critics in the region. His word was consi...

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“Sheila's Menu” by Ralph Emery Barhydt

Submitted to Contest #162

Sheila's MenuSheila was always there at exactly 5:30 every evening. She stood at a careful angle to the window so that he wouldn’t notice her, but she had a very good view of him. It only took her three nights to have a complete grip on his face. He looked Japanese but he was tall. And. He was very handsome. It was Sheila’s opinion that the menu really wasn’t that interesting but that her handiwork, her calligraphy must have caught his eye. For ten, twenty, thirty minutes every night, he studied her handwriting like he was reading the menu. ...

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“Storybook Sushi (1 roll, 6 pieces)” by Marty B

Submitted to Contest #162

Discussion of violence.*AceMy face is pressed against a blood-splattered restaurant menu while I am handcuffed flat on the floor of the restaurant. On the pink paper there is a drawing of a sushi roll on an open book, the logo of my favorite restaurant, Storybook Sushi.All I did was defend myself with a stupid jujitsu move I learned watching the Black Panther movie. How did I get here? Everyone has a backstory, the reasons behind their actions. But the only thing that mattered was what happened, not how it came about. That nig...

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Start your story with someone looking at a restaurant menu.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 80 stories

“Roger Reads the Menu” by Story Time

“101 Dosas” by Suma Jayachandar

“Petal” by Chris Campbell

“Drowning, hope” by Salmah Ahmed

“Susana in Recovery” by Melissa Taylor

“How Junior Mints Changed My Life” by Jeannette Miller

“A Meal of Memories” by Francois Kosie

“A story bite” by Ela Mikh

“01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110101” by Karen McDermott

“Gurn, Baby, Gurn” by Jim Firth

“CAF- The Italian Job” by Monu Singh

“The Old Weight of Love” by Brittany Mackeown

“The Food Critic” by Greg Gillis

“Sheila's Menu” by Ralph Emery Barhydt

“Storybook Sushi (1 roll, 6 pieces)” by Marty B

🌟 Similar prompts

Write about a character whose love language is making food for others.

Write a story where a character’s life completely changes over the course of a meal.

Write a story in which too many cooks spoil the broth — literally or metaphorically.

Start your story with one character trying to convince another that they make the best grilled cheese in the world.

Contest #162

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

234

Contest entries

98

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: