Ross Partners Blog

Apartment Searching in Ann Arbor

It’s that time again…well, not for me, but for YOU! MBA admits starting this coming fall - and their partners - are looking for a place to live for the next year or two. Aren’t you excited? And maybe feeling a little overwhelmed and scared and already missing your friends and families? I was! But once you find an apartment to call home, you will start to feel better…

Now, how to find your new home… when my boyfriend and I were looking for an apartment, we first thought about must-haves versus nice-to-haves. For us, being close enough to downtown and campus so we could both walk to school and work was #1. Also at the top of the list was being as far away as possible from all the undergrad parties in the neighborhoods south of campus. So, we picked Kerrytown.

Kerrytown is a great neighborhood just north of the main campus with a farmers’ market, shops and restaurants. Old houses split into apartments with character make up most of the rental market here. The mix of graduate students, undergrads and townies gives the neighborhood a lively feel but I’ve never been kept up at night by wild parties. And, you can walk everywhere, which we love.

We found our apartment on PadMapper. If you haven’t used it, it’s a Google app that consolidates all open rental listings posted for a city (from Craigslist, realtors’ websites, etc.) and plots them on a map. You can also enter your search criteria and have the site send you daily lists of what was posted in the last 24 hours. There’s a smartphone app, too, for apartment searching on the go! I highly recommend it.

There are lots of housing options in Ann Arbor. You just need to figure out what you want and track it down. I would also suggest you start as soon as you can. Everyone here looks for apartments or resigns their lease in the fall, so you have to hustle a little bit by springtime.

Good luck and welcome to Ann Arbor!
Carrie

Bon Voyage and Bon Appétit!

Hi Readers! Hope you are all enjoying our early spring! I know I have been. In fact, these sunny, 80 degree days come at a great time for me since my main squeeze is in Hong Kong and India for three weeks for his MAP project. Hmm…I just realized that I don’t know what MAP stands for. I know that it is what the Ross students spend the last quarter of their first year working on and that it seems kind of like a mini-internship but before I just start making up the rest of it, here’s the official description from Ross with much more detail. In any case, many students get to travel for the project and Dave, “my student”, gets to go to the other side of the globe! Neither of us have been to India or Hong Kong, so I can’t wait for him to get back and tell me all about it. Hopefully he took some photos. Dave, are you reading this? Take some photos! Like this:

I am really excited for him to have this opportunity but of course I miss him a lot, too. It’s no fun being apart for three weeks! But, luckily, many of the other Partners are going through the same thing so we have been keeping each other company here. We have had some Partners Club happy hours and other get togethers which are fun anyway but especially nice when the students are away. It’s is really nice to chat with the other partners who understand exactly what you are going through! The Partners are doing the Big House Big Heart race together as a club in April, so it’s been awesome that it is so gorgeous out so that we can train outside! Well, kind of awesome. It’s made me realize just how out of shape I am in and now instead of giving up because it’s raining I have no excuse to skip out on an after-work jog.

Is this picture of the Taj Mahal making you crave some garlic naan like I am right now? I am having trouble focusing on anything else. Maybe I will grab some Indian take out tonight in honor of my beloved. My favorite place for Indian in Ann Arbor has to be Raja Rani. So good! I have to admit I am no expert on Indian cuisine, but I love love love it! Plus, as a vegetarian, there are always so many more options on the menu for me which means less haggling with my waiter for an entrée with 20 substitutions…oh, you can’t 86 the bacon, sub shrimp for chicken and add a side of sour cream? And walking into Raja Rani on a cold dark night is like a mini-vacation. It’s so bright and welcoming. Even the website and is pretty and exotic! Half the dining room in the old colonial-style house-turned-restaurant faces out toward the street, over a wrap-around veranda so as soon as you walk in, you don’t feel like you are in Kansas anymore (well, Michigan).

I should also mention Shalimar on Main Street. It’s very good as well, though it couldn’t quite match the charm of Raja Rani. What other Indian places are good in Ann Arbor, for take out or dine in? I want to hear your suggestions!

Bon Appetit!
Carrie

Ann Arbor Restaurant Week!

Today’s blog is about … Restaurant Week! Yes, you heard right. Little Ann Arbor has a restaurant week, just like it’s big brother cities (speaking of which, Ann Arbor has a lot of official sister cities, if that sign on State St. is right; Dakar, Belize City, Perterborough and a bunch of others – who knew?).

Can I start with how much I love the idea of restaurant week? In Cleveland - that's right, can't forget where you came from – I loved checking out new places during restaurant week with my girlfriends or having an excuse to go somewhere fancy on a Tuesday with Dave. Normally, when we go out to eat, we aren’t ordering an app, two entrees and dessert. No one really needs that much food (at least in mid-west proportions) unless you are planning on going into hibernation or training for the Olympics. But during restaurant week, that goes right out the window. It’s part of the deal! This is not the time to ask the waiter how many points he thinks are in the spare ribs. It’s time to get down - with some escargot, to start. Fetticcini alfredo – yes, please. Molten chocolate cake for dessert? Well, I already paid for it, and it’s oozing chocolaty lava at me…

But, I digress. Anyway, for its size, Ann Arbor has a lot of restaurants that participate and they offer some pretty solid prix fixe options. Most offer three courses for $25; some also offer a two for $25 option where you split the app and dessert but each get a full entrée. There’s a $12 lunch option, too, if you have time for a leisurely le déjeuner...check out all the menus at annarborrestaurantweek.com.

To fairly set expectations, this is a college town, so this list is not all fine dining or hot new bistros. At some of the pizza places and bars with very average menus, you are going to get a pretty average meal. But, of course, it is at about half price. On the plus side, there are some truly delightful places that participate - oui! And another bonus is that there are a lot of great and inexpensive Asian and Indian restaurants in Ann Arbor and many of them get in on the restaurant week action.

So, where did I go? Dear readers, I’ll tell you. First Marnee Thai, on Main St. with some of my girls. I think Thai food is delicious in general and Marnee Thai delivered. I ordered the tom kha tofu soup (Amazing. Coconut milk, lemongrass, chili get together here and have a love child which they named tom kha) and coconut ice cream (sweet and refreshing after a spicy dinner). I had an entrée in between - I forget what - but it was really good, too. We also got a drink with our dinners here, which was a nice bonus. Great conversation? Yes, but that is BYO.

Dave and I went one night also to Cottage Inn. (Yes, a week-night dinner date, just like old times! It was great!) We had the calamari to start. Was it deep fried and a little on the chewy side? Yes. More breading than calamari meat? Yes. Still salty and crunchy and greas-ily delicious? Totally. Next was baked spagettini and eggplant parmesan – both fine. We ordered a chocolate and ice cream smothered waffle, too, but they had run out by dessert time. Boo! Although, side note, this is also a part of restaurant week…sometimes these businesses get a little overwhelmed by the crowds – it’s the Groupon effect. Unless the kitchen is out of half the items on the menu or the service is really bad, I like to give them the benefit of the doubt. If the food is good and the experience is for the most part good, I’ll probably chalk the little misses up to restaurant week and go back again another time to see what it’s normally like. Anyway, it was probably for the best … we ended up with two little cannoli which were just enough to satisfy our dessert craving but not too much that we needed to roll each other home.

Restaurant week may be over, but it's not too soon to look forward to 2013!

Until then, cheers!
Carrie

Falling in Love with Ann Arbor...Through Food

Helllllo, and welcome to my blog! I am a first year partner here at Ross, along for the ride for the next two years while my boyfriend, Dave works on his MBA and finds a job that will pay for his sailing habit and my Whole Foods addiction. I currently work for a big bank (don’t judge me - marketing, not sub-prime mortgage lending!). I was able to transfer my job to an office here in Ann Arbor so I can keep on saving the world, one brochure at a time, while Dave hits the books.

We are both from Ohio and were living in Cleveland when Dave got The Call from the Ross admissions office last spring. If you are reading this, you probably know exactly what we were feeling! We had both come to Go Blue Rendezvous so we had some clue of what to expect, but still it was really exciting and also a little scary and we both knew our lives were about to change.

So, we got to work, finding a new apartment, going on M-Trek, saying goodbye to our old lives (tear) ... It was all kind of crazy, but we were looking forward to the move, too. There was only one thing I really worried about…what about the food?! We had been so spoiled in Cleveland by a small but really great culinary scene. Restaurants, bars, food trucks, farmer’s markets, and pubs galore! Could Ann Arbor compare? Don’t worry, after about five months I am happy to report that this place has a lot to offer! Yes, there’s plenty of cheap, greasy college-town food – not that I don’t love it sometimes…ok, I love it anytime – but there are some real gems, too. You just have to know where to look…

So, I would like to start off my unsolicited and unprofessional foodie advice to you with a love letter…to the Ann Arbor Farmers Market. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!

When we first moved here, at the end of August, Dave was immediately sucked into the whirlwind of orientation and then classes and then all that other stuff students do. So, I had a lot of free time to hang out at my new happy place. We live in Kerrytown, just a few blocks away from the Farmer’s Market, so every Saturday, I would trot over and drool my way through the aisles. Unlike my beloved West Side Market, it’s outside, so you get some fresh air, which is a bonus when you have been stuck inside unpacking all morning.

On my first visit, I made a rookie mistake and went totally nuts. Lesson learned: no two people can eat two quarts of raspberries before the berries go bad, even if it was a good deal and they really, really love raspberries. But, if you have an hour or two and a little self-restraint, check it out! I promise you won’t be disappointed and your refrigerator will be filled with fresh, delicious, local supplies. And, there’s also an adjacent building full of more great stuff next door: a beautiful paper store, a great kitchen supply store, a shop dedicated to amazing olive oils and vinegars, a small market with a somehow incredible selection and much more which I will let you discover yourself. Happy marketing!

Ciao until next time,
Carrie