Jquery UI Menu Widget in a div

Jquery UI Menu Widget in a div

I have a div where I am dynamically creating the list for the jqueryui menu widget.  

A couple of questions - the list flashes visibly before assuming the JqueryUI menu - is there a way to populate the menu in a more hidden way.  If the div is hidden then the menu is also hidden.  

Second and more importantly - I tried using the following:

        var setMenu = function(mySelector)
        {
           jQuery(mySelector).menu({position: { collision: "flip fit"}});
        }

And the issue is that while the menu appears when I mouse over a submenu item it is clipped and doesn't fit or flip.  I don't think there's an error in my syntax here but it looks like this collision stuff only matters on the initial display and not when menu items are expanded.  So - is there a work around to get it to flip the other way - even if it's overlaying the existing menu or to ignore the border of the div it is located in?  The div just isn't wide enough.  I could make it wider but the whole page is generated in the dom and well I have reasons I want to limit the width of the div.  Thank you for any feedback.