Welcome to Whole Foods city! (passport not required)

I have an affinity for Whole Foods Market, though I admittedly don't shop there too often. We had recently heard of a new location opening up in Pasadena (there's already a branch in another area of Pasadena) on Arroyo, which is the street that the 110 freeway ends up at, which the website touts as "the largest Whole Foods Market west of the Rockies", so this past Saturday, we went by to have a look.

Oh.My.Goodness. This place is indeed HUGE. One of the things that the builders nicely thought about is that with as many things as there are in this "market", people aren't likely to just pop in and out, so they included a three-story underground parking structure.

The main entrance lets you into the produce village. There was actually so much to see everywhere that it was like going through a mall - the husband and I had to map out what we'd already seen and what we still needed to see. I think most of the time, we went around the edge of one section and then looked at the middle stuff before moving onto the next section. The produce section alone has all manner of fruits and vegetables that you could possibly want, including a large section of organically grown produce. The seafood bar is nearby, and they have lots of different items available, lots of different kind of shrimp and even calamari steaks. They also had pre-cooked whole dungeness crab ready to go. Most of the major sections in the store have areas where you can buy prepared foods to eat on the premises. There was even a little two-table cafe near the seafood bar.

There's a nut roasting section with all kinds of nuts roasted with every manner of seasoning or rolled in some manner of chocolate or cinnamon or something else or even plain. They also do special order roasting. The roasted chestnuts looked really good. There's also a juice bar where you can order from a selection of items. In the back is a section that has clothes, shoes, lotions, vitamins and other items. Behind that is a seating area complete with a number of nice tables, a flat-screen TV set on ESPN (that day anyway) and plastic silverware as well as a microwave that you can use.

The website mentions a "Take a Break Massage Room". What kind of market has a massage room? OK, it wasn't as much as I thought it might be, like a spa or something like that. I did see the entrance to the massage room, and it looked like there were four of those "sit and rest your body and head forward" things that you might see at the mall. There looked to be a sort of receptionist, but I didn't go in to see what they actually offered. But still, given how big the market is and how much time it takes to go through the market, you might just need a massage in the middle of your shopping trip!

OK, so far, that's only been the first floor. There's a whole second floor to the market. They have one of those cart lifts next to the escalators (as well as an elevator) so if you have a cart, it can ride up next to you. There's an employee there to help people with that.

Immediately off the escalator is the baked goods section. They have all manner of bread and bagels and danishes and cakes and cookies and pies and other desserts. Many of these are made sugar-free as well. They also have a chocolate section where a multitude of flavored truffles are available, as well as other sweets, and there's even a flowing chocolate fountain. Not sure if you just choose from a selection they provide to dip in the chocolate or if you can buy things from elsewhere (like fruit, for instance) and bring it up and have them cover it in chocolate.

They also have an entire cheese section with more cheese than I've seen in one place at one time. There are a few stations where you can sample a few of them, and I did end up buying a bit of a cheese that I sampled. Next to the cheese section is a very small Wine and Tapas Lounge, which basically just had a couple of sofas put together. We had a look at the menu, and there are a few items on there. The most interesting to me are a couple of cheese plates. That would seem ideal - try the cheeses there and if you like any of them, you can presumably buy more in the store.

Next to that is the meat counter. They mostly had a huge selection of different cuts of beef, and then ground beef, chicken and turkey as well. They also had duck available. There were a number of roasts and other items which were already seasoned and prepared, so you would just have to take them home and cook them for the appropriate amount of time. They even had a turducken available and ready to be cooked! It's the first time I'd ever seen one before. (The husband and I joked that it really had to be made that way because stuffing a turkey into either a chicken or a duck was probably not going to happen. However, we did decide that if physics could be defied and you could reverse it and stuff a turkey into a duck and then stuff that into a chicken, you'd have to call it a chuckey [CHickendUCKturkEY], and given how deformed and wrong this creature would look, naming it after a killer doll would be entirely appropriate. But I digress...)

There was a dairy section, and a wine section, and sections of other boxed goods and other normal things you'd find in supermarkets. The center section of the upstairs, though, is where the really good stuff is.

There are a number of stations where different prepared foods are available. There's a salad bar that has three different sections (including an olive bar), and there's a hot food bar as well. This day, the specialty items were Indian food items, and they smelled wonderful, just like in an Indian restaurant. There's a section when you can order sandwiches. There's a section that has Japanese food - some kinds of sushi, udon, tempura and teriyaki. There's also a section with hot mediterranean items. There are also a few seating areas in that section.

Because the market is so huge and has such an amazing selection, they also offer a lot of items for those with dietary restrictions. There were whole walls of gluten-free items and sugar-free items and dairy-free items and things like that. I would expect anyone who needs to find those kind of specialty items would appreciate having the varied selection that this store offers.

I loved wandering around the store (though it was definitely a tiring effort), and I do plan to go back sometime to try some of the prepared foods, but I think the peasant in me will always have trouble doing too much shopping there. For some of the specialty items, or for something where I'm looking for better quality or more selection, I can see going there, but I can't imagine ever shopping there on a regular basis for everyday items. It's obviously more expensive there than in a regular market, and I just can't see paying those kinds of prices for ordinary items. They had fresh cranberries and whole roasted plain almonds and cashews, three things I wanted, but since I can get all of those items at other places and there isn't anything particularly spectacular about those items, I wouldn't be able to justify paying their prices for those items. I'd probably be more inclined to buy things like wine and cheese and certain cuts of meat or seafood or special produce items, things that aren't easily available elsewhere.

Here's a link to the Pasadena (Arroyo) branch of Whole Foods Market.