What is the most efficient way to load menu information?

[dodyg]

I tried {% assign menu = Content["alias:main-menu-en"] %}, it worked but this way I have to keep loading the detail of each menu item to reach their url.

Is there any more efficient way to do this? I want to render my menu at the footer but in different format than what I have for top navigation.

I just want to grab a whole of all the information in a menu in one go and render them myself in a loop at the footer.

e.g. is there any equivalent of

{% shape "menu", alias: "alias:main-menu", cache_id: "main-menu", cache_expires_after: "00:05:00", cache_tag: "alias:main-menu" %} that just instantiate the shape but not render it?