css unordered list menu resembles 'steps' in IE

Answer 1

my first guess would be either padding or margin on your li elements. see if this helps:

li {
  padding: 0;
  margin: 0;
}

(spoke too soon, looks like you do have that in there)

on third glance, it looks like you're setting the following:

ul.menu li a {
  display: block
  padding: 11px 0 0;
}

see if removing that 11px padding helps

Answer 2

Apply display: inline to ul.menu li.