in celebration of a somewhat significant accomplishment, my mom took me to Hilary's Urban Eatery (HUE) for dinner on monday night. i have to say that i was a bit disappointed. granted, i had heard not of HUE's great dinners, but of their fantastic brunches but i figured there's be some quality carry-over. we split guacamole and (heated) salsa, both being pretty tasty. each got a salad and split the special pumpkin ravioli with some sort of buttery sauce and the ravioli combo, a gorgonzola spinach ravioli with another kind of buttery sauce. it was good but much much too heavy for any normal person to eat. two days later, my stomach is still recovering, and i rarely have food-related tummy problems (i prefer to channel anxiety and stress if i'm looking to make my stomach knot). and while i appreciated the creativity involved, the gorgonzola ravioli didn't come together--the flavors didn't really work so well. the absolute highlight, meanwhile, of the pumpkin ravioli was the pile of fresh mango sprinkled with goat cheese in the middle of the plate.

one other thing. i realize that HUE has no control over their neighbors, but whoever lives on the third floor of HUE's building, kept their enormous scary black barking growling dog on their back porch, looking over HUE's outdoor dining area. and when you're sitting in said area directly at the bottom of the stairs that lead from that third floor porch to the rest of the world, with just a two foot high fence keeping the dog on the porch and off the staircase, well, its a little unsettling. i swear, if that dog had half a brain in him, he could have hopped that fence, come racing down the stairs and eaten my mom and me for dinner, with a nice cheesy and buttery ravioli for dessert. i wouldn't be lying to say that i had actually planned out some possible escape routes in case it came to that.