Elite Event: Seasonal Shenanigans @ Rosemary Rocksalt

Another hit from our wonderful new CM, Ayla.
The venue was a nice cozy bagel shop. I actually wasn’t sure what to expect, but once I walked in, all my worries went away.
It was neat seeing how the world of Elites evolves as well. There were a bunch of new faces, and everyone felt very welcoming.
Before we knew it, the place was bumping. High-​fives were exchanged, and goodies passed around. Staff were absolutely great here. They love it there, and it shows.
One thing I really do enjoy about these events is that we get to sample their food. Maybe I’m just naïve, but this place had some of the best tasting bagels I’ve had in years. And I mean that literally. The place is now on my radar.
Special mention goes to the bagels, especially the smoked salmon one. Smoked salmon anything is good, but the onions, lemons, and capers really put it over the top. The Montréal smoked meat one was excellent as well, but I’m a sucker for seafood.
There was no booze at this one, but the hipster juice selection definitely made up for it. I tried a bottle of juice, and it really does taste much better than the stuff I had as a kid (and even now).
If this is a sign of things to come, I’m definitely keeping up my membership. Thanks for an awesome time.

YAAAASSS! Another Unilocal Elite Event for the Christmas Season!
By the end of the night, I can for sure say I was full on food, had enough of drinks, and wanted to go home. And this time I was full, and could barely have enough Bagels for the rest of the year!
This Unilocal elite event was small and it was good so you can meet and talk with everyone! I met a lot of new Unilocalers and good to see some old Unilocalers again! The Unilocal Elite community is hilarious, and well we are all so friendly, so it makes it fun!
There was so much food, I had to say no to some of it. And that was a good thing, so thank you Rosemary Rocksalt for a fantastic time, and for the delicious food. I hope to drop by again to a great time!
Thank you Ayla for organizing such amazing Elite Event parties, and always giving hugs left and right! YAY! :D

For those who don’t know, Ayla, our newest Community Manager, organized her very first Elite Event at Rosemary Rocksalt. Many Unilocalers including myself met amazing Ayla for the very first time.
The friendly and hardworking staff offered us delicious bite sized samples their different bagels topped with a variety of spreads. I loved the main entrée which was Montréal Smoked Meat bagel and the smoked salmon bagel with capers and cream cheese.
Since this was an alcohol free event, there were a variety sodas, juices and tea drinks available too! I loved the green tea iced tea. There was a festive atmosphere with a guitarist playing cheerful Christmas songs. The pass the parcel gift unwrapping game had lots of heads turning with people asking questions.
Unilocalers including myself tried tossing bagels from the oven — so difficult, yet so fun!
Near the end of the evening, they brought out these cute dessert bagels which were all so yummy.
Ayla’s old school individually signed Christmas cards and the new and classic Unilocal swag in the bag was a really nice touch to the holiday season!

Thanks to our new and lovely CM we got to chill with some Mango Tea and tasty bagels from Rosemary Rocksalt. It was great to have an Elite only to talk to some of the awesome members of the fun Unilocal community and catch up.
The décor of this place is very cute and lovely art work on the chalkboard is a great conversation starter. The highlights were, the delicious bagels, tasty teas and trying my hands at throwing bagels and of course the selfie with CM.
The variety of bagels, smoked Montréal meat and just-​the-​right texture pickles will have me coming me back for more.

Ohhhh how I’ve missed Unilocal events! Vancouver has a new CM, and she’s fantastic! Ayla put on an amazing event (and it was my first time meeting her :)).
I’ve never been to Rosemary Rocksalt before, but they made sure that we were well taken care of. Lots of bagel & cream cheese samples floating around — I think one of my favs was their feature flavor, Cranilla (cranberry — vanilla) cream cheese. And surprisingly, their veggie cream cheese spread was really flavorful too! After sampling several bites, we were given 2 bagel halves, one topped with smoked meat, and the other with Lox, capers and onions. Everything was delicious, and I was stuffed. We even had our choice of sodas to choose from!
One of the best parts was when their expert bagel tosser invited Unilocalers to try flipping (about 10) bagels from a plank of wood and dropping them all into a basket. Bagels were just flying everywhere! Though, after some careful observations, and asking the expert flipper what her tricks were, I was able to get most of my bagels into the bin — yeahhhhh!
Ayla also did a great job with the swag bags — tons of goodies, I ended up with a few things along with a silicon Unilocal ice cube tray :) Others had mugs, or the Unilocal foldable tote pouch (small enough to fit into a purse. never seen these before). Thanks, and looking forward to 2015!

Oh Moses smell the Rosemary! It’s a Christmas party in a Jewish Deli! What a Mitzvah! (01) Okay technically it’s not a Jewish deli, but the place is a bissel (02) JewISH.
This was an Elite Event +Dan. A sheynem dank (03) Ayla for including me. And it featured all the things I love; smoked meat, lox, Boylens* (04) soda, bagels, nochamel (05) bagels plus bagels upon bagels, kreplach! and most of all good friends old and new. This was one of the few alcohol free events so now I know what y’all look like without the benefit of being farshnoshkit (06). Turns out you Elites are a good lookin’ bunch. Ugly sweaters and all. Being sober allowed for some coherent and clever conversation too:
Me: How exactly do you pronounce Ayla’s name? Is it EYE-​la or EH-​la?
Becky: I’m not sure. Let’s ask.
Me: No.
Becky: Why not?
Me: Because I’m embarrassed. I should know by now.
Becky: I’ll ask.
Me: No! don–
Becky: Ayla, how do you pronounce your name? Is it EYE-​la or EH-​la?
Ayla: It’s EYE-​la.
Me: See? I told you Becky!
haha. To me this was funny. Sorry for being a putz (06) Becky but if I was going down I was taking you with me :)
I had a lot of fun, the food and music was festive and the company as always was great. Thank-​you to der ganse (08) Rosemary and Rocksalt mishpoche (09) you’re all mentchen (10). Your smoked meat is excellent and I’ll be by for some of your msm as soon as I find some caraway rye worthy of it.
Ayla, bei mir bistu sheyna (11)! Merry Christmas, Goot Yontif (12) und a Goot Yor (13) to all.
SO many of my favourite things, to me this was a Dan event +Elites.
(01) nice thing
(02) a little
(03) thank-​you
(04) Boylens
(05) again with the…
(06) drunk
(07) a schmuk
(08) the entire
(09) family
(10) generous /​kind
(11) by me you’re amazing
(12) happy holidays
(13) happy new year

This was my first real Christmas party of the year. I am glad that I wasn’t the only one with the ugly Christmas sweater action (I am waiting for the other pics). Of course there was no shortage of laughter and friends. The place is really tiny, however, we all managed just find.
Lots of samples and bagels. I am stuffed like a bagel.
It was a good chance to meet the new community CM.
My favourite part was the music and keeping the beat with the tambourine. Thanks everyone for singing with me.

The rain stopped for us lucky Elites last night as we made our way to Main St. Greeted at the door by our newly appointed CM Ayla, she was lovely as can be.
This event was a cozier event with a smaller group, and a substantial amount of food. Who else was so full after all those delicious bagels?
It seemed like yesterday’s event was a first for a few people. It was great to meet new faces and of course the familiar.
Seeing Ramon, Eva and others in their Christmas sweaters were a hoot. Great job guys!
Thank you, oh wonderful people at Rosemary Rocksalt, Iain for the music and lovely Lindsay for taking pictures of all of us!
Thank you for a fun night Ayla, and welcome to Vancouver!

I’d give this event a full baker’s dozen of stars if I could.
Cozy, fun, delicious, shared with Unilocalers new and old. Selfies, Christmas cards and gift baggies! On a school night. What’s not to love?
Thanks Ayla!
The bagelicious treats were plentiful. Cream cheese, lox, smoked meat, and more. The soda bar was left wide open. After all of that, I had three helpings of chocolate raspberry rugelach, and tried to keep most of it off my (ahem) modest Christmas sweater.
Great job by the RR team to make us all feel at home!

THIS was awesomeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! For so many reasons:
1. My first time meeting Ayla! Gorgeous, adorable, sweet, funny, loveable! Best thing of the evening, hands down.
2. Bagels. Oh my gosh, so many bagels. I loved them all — and the seasonal cream cheese was mmmmmmm.
3. Parise Siegel. Such a sweetheart! Who knew that she was part of the amazing Vancouver legacy of Siegel’s bagels? How cool!
4. The entire place was fantastic. I loved the whole little place. It was fresh, clean, comfy, and well laid out.
5. The people! so many people! Nothing warms the heart like seeing old friends (hello Vincci! Hello Dru! Hello Dan! Hello Judy!) and meeting new peeps (hello Steven! Hello Siobhan! Hello Eliza (shoot did I spell that right?))
So super happy with this entire event. Ayla — you did fabulous for your first ever Elite Event! I can’t wait to see what 2015 Unilocal has with you at the helm! Big hugs!

This was my first Unilocal Elite Event that I’ve ever been to and I have to say I had a great time meeting you all. The food here was pretty good and I have to say I will totally come back to get some bagels on a nice sunny day.
I can’t wait for the next event.

Thank you Ayla and Rosemary Rocksalt for an awesome night. I’ll be coming back for more!

The tubular room was filled with all manner of red white green gold brown and perhaps even some purple. All to kick off the holiday season with a Unilocaly Unilocaler of an event. Nice to see familiar Elite faces decked out in tacky holiday shirt/​sweaters/​tie/​hat creations. The lighting was WAY brighter than our usual Elite activities and the glare was not softened by the subtle application of +5% anything but it was WAY FUN. I would say the Rocksalt Staff (Naomi and the gang) rock customer service. They made the little pre-​Midweek tasting extra special. LOVED the Montréal smoked meat and as a native Montrealer ‘I knows me some smoked meat’. Lox (smoked salmon) and bagel w/​cream cheese another Mtl institution was a delish side note. Big hit were the local beverages made with cane sugar and organic bits N bops (READ CONTENT of beverages: bad stuff NO good stuff YES). Which of course leaves room for super guilt-​free indulgence of rugelahs (3 kinds). So glad to be introduced to this place outside my regular circles and worth the return trip.

Thanks to Ayla and rock salt for putting on an amazingly delicious event! I think we were all overloaded with bagels it was raining bagels literally as we were throwing them up to get them in the carts!
First Unilocal event and really enjoyed meeting with new people and exchanging stories! Hope to see everyone again soon!
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