Today we embark on the ultimate expensive grocery store battle. – Let’s talk about that. (upbeat music) Good Mythical Summer. – When you want a splurge on a meal, where do you go? A steakhouse? A fancy French restaurant? Well, for a lot of Angelenos, that’s people who live in LA, Link. – Yeah. – On TikTok. – That’s a web, it’s a social media thing with its short videos. They’re getting longer though. – They are? What do those people do? – The answer is the Erewhon hot bar! – Oh man. I went there for a little treat. – Oh, what’d you get yourself? – Mm hmm, I got some hot stuff at the bar. But if you’re not in LA, uh, (crew laughing) you can’t go there. So you just have to watch us eat this stuff from Erewhon. But we got you, in terms of the fascination. Earlier this year we tasted some super expensive Erewhon foods up against Walmart and Kroger in our Cheap Versus Expensive Grocery Store test, and Erewhon did not fare very well. – No, it didn’t. And Whole Foods has also not fared too well in the past with us in a previous Food Feuds where we pit Whole Foods store brand packaged foods against Trader Joe’s packaged Foods. Trader Joe’s won in a landslide. – So today we’re giving both of these pricier grocery stores a chance to redeem themselves by digging deep into every area of their prepared foods. We’re talking sandwich counters, hot bars, bakeries, and beyond. It’s time for Food Feuds. Whole foods versus Erewhon. (upbeat rock music) – [Stevie] All right, boys, you know how this works. You’re gonna taste and rate similar prepared foods from each grocery store. The winning store will be named The Prince of Prepared Foods and win a chance to sponsor a future GMM episode. And we’re kicking things off with some burritos. On Rhett’s side, the Whole Foods Chili Lime chicken burrito for $9, and on Link’s, the organic chicken burrito from Erewhon for $15.95. – $15.95? – Mmm. – Okay. So let’s start with the cheapy one. Or do you want to eat both of these and then tell me about it, and I’ll eat both of these and tell you about it? – Yeah, that sounds good. (crew laughing) – So what do you think about burritos that, beans on one side, chicken on one side, that’s the system? I like it when they mix it- – I like it when it’s all mixed. – ‘Cause I want my bites to be similar. – Is the Erewhon mixed? A little better I think. – I gotta take a half bean bite and a half chicken bite. – I’ma do that. – Whole. – Mm hmm. – I mean, I’m gonna look at this little chicken that came out. – That’s a, oh look. – That’s very good. Charred chicken. – The sauce in there. – That’s a good burrito. You may have known this Link- – Very good. – But Whole Foods- – We’re gonna rate that and we’re gonna rate this. – Whole Foods was the first certified organic grocer, grocer? Is it grocer or a grocer? – Grocer. Grocer, with a T? – Yeah, yeah, yeah. In the US. I think most people, if you were to say, “What’s the first certified organic grocery store “in America,” people are like, “It’s gotta be Whole Foods, right. “It’s gotta be Whole Foods. It’s gotta be Whole Foods.” Well, you’d be right. – Yeah, and you would be right. – Since 2003. – Well, Erewhon was started by Japanese macrobiotic educators Michio and Aveline Kushi in 1966. – Aveline Kushi? – Yeah. – They sold macrobiotic and organic foods out of a 10×20 stall below street level in Boston! – We’re over here in Boston. We’re selling some of this macrobiotic stuff and it’s made it where I can’t breathe outta my nose. I don’t know why I was talking like that. – Nobody does. – Mm. Bigger pieces of chicken. – Oh, that’s good. It’s bigger. It’s a bigger burrito. – It’s very weirder. Like, what is that, what’s that sauce? It’s like a salsa sauce. – It’s almost like a green tomatillo. – I’ma look at that little chicken. – Man, these are both solid burritos. – The Erewhon one’s just a little weird. Now I did not score this one, so I need to do that. – I didn’t score it either. – I forgot to do that. – I’m really loving, I mean, this definitely competes with Chipotle. (Rhett groans) Huh? – No. – [Link] I don’t think it’s as good as Chipotle- – Seven. – But I’m gonna give it an eight. Over here, whoops. It’s just, I can’t decide what I think of this green stuff. It’s very good. – It’s different. – But it’s executed just as well. Seven. – I like it a little bit less ’cause I’m a little puzzled. I’m gonna give it a seven, agreeing with you but disagreeing with my other rating. Yeah, yeah, you disagreed with your other rating. And me. (upbeat rock music) – [Stevie] Up next is mac and cheese from each store’s hot bar. On Rhett’s side is Whole Foods mac and cheese for $11.99 per pound, and on Link’s is Erewhon’s for $19 per pound. – $19 for a pound of mac and cheese? – [Stevie] Mm hmm. – As expensive as Whole Foods is, Erewhon is just- – How much is this? – It’s just a gimmick. – Charging more is just a gimmick. – $19 for a pound of mac and cheese? I mean, $12 is already crazy. – That is a, that is a top notch mac and cheese right there. – [Rhett] It’s very good. – You know when you’re mac and, the cheese in it gets that fluffy curdle-ness? – The fluffy curdle they call it. – I love when it gets a little fluffy and curdly. – It tastes like real cheese, it doesn’t taste like a cheese product. – That is so good. That’s a nine. – Well, I don’t know- – I know, just getting ahead of myself. I know I’m, I can’t help it. I can’t help it, I love it. – It’s not a nine. – He’s gonna score it again. Okay. – [Link] You don’t want me to- – I don’t want you to suddenly do this episode different after 100 different versions that we’ve done. – So we are going to now taste this, that’s what we’re doing next. (crew laughing) Mm. Whoa. – That’s different. (crew giggling) – There’s so much cheese, it’s like eating paste. It’s like eating spackle, like cheese spackle. Where is the, where are the noodles? The noodles have become cheese. That is decadent. – It’s so rich. $19 a pound. Get your money’s worth. – It’s so good that it’s becoming not good again. Is that happening? – No. – Yes. – If you put it on a plate, no, and you were going back to it and you had other foods, every time you come back to this, it’s like bam! – It’s as if there’s no noodles in it though. It’s just cheese. And cheese is what they should call it. Whatever you’re eating- – This is definitely more traditional. I don’t know. man. I’m so confused by Erewhon. – But I like going there. Don’t you like that? – Tell me something about Erewhon. I’m so confused, I want, I want- – I’ll tell you something. When the crew called Erewhon to ask about some of their foods, Erewhon told ’em to hang up and text them. – What? – That’s so Erewhon of them. – “You know, could you just text us, “because we don’t believe-” – Text who? Erewhon. – Just text the store? Yeah- – You can text a store? Yeah. And if you call ’em, they’ll hang up and tell you to text. – I love it- – I don’t know how you hear it because they hung up. – You can just text any store? Where’s the- – No. Is there a phone book? – You can’t text any store. Where do I get the numbers for all the stores I can text? – Well, you call ’em first. – I’m gonna start a new thing where I’m driving and I see a store and I think, “I wonder if I could text that store.” – Well call ’em and find out. – Then I call ’em and I ask ’em if I can text. – Right. – From outside the store. – Yeah. – “I’m outside, I was just wondering if I can text you.” “Are you coming in?” “No, I’m just interested in texting.” – You know what, I haven’t thought about this until now, but I think that I’m going to give this a nine. This is pretty much, this may be perfect. I’m almost giving it a 10. – No, it’s not perfect. A perfect mac and cheese is something that somebody makes in a Crockpot or puts in the oven or- – It has that Crockpot thing without the crispiness. Maybe that’s what would give it a 10, is a crispy top. – This is good though. – This is so good- – Eight. – It’s becoming not good anymore. – I really like it. – I have to give it seven. – It’s maybe too grainy. – Too grainy, it needs to be a little smoother. I’m also gonna give it a seven. Can you text them and tell ’em I give ’em a seven? – Well, I need to call ’em to get their number. – Okay. (upbeat rock music) – [Stevie] It’s pizza time. On Rhett’s side is Whole Foods 18-inch barbecue chicken pizza for $19. And on Link’s is Erewhon’s 18 inch barbecue pizza for $36. – $36 for a pizza? – Ouch. – But look at it, it is beautiful. – Chock full of meat! And they have their own wood-fire pizza oven that I don’t, well, lemme see the bottom of that. – What does this make you think when you see a bubble that big in a pizza? What do you think about? Tell me I’m not crazy. – What do I think about? – What do you remember? – I think about- – From our childhood. – Brain from “Pinky and the Brain”. Think about your, I don’t know, that one time I saw your balls and I didn’t mean to. (crew laughing) – [Stevie] I just got the warning that Link’s glass may fall over. – Mine’s not gon fall over, it’s full of milk. – Yep. (crew laughing) – My Dink It and Sink It glass did not like your joke about seeing my adolescent balls. – If I wasn’t looking at this, I would think this is a beautiful pizza. When I eat barbecue chicken pizza, I gotta compare it to California Pizza. – [Rhett] CPK. – And I think it matches it. They are bringing it. Erewhon is not “nowhere” backwards. People say that, but it’s- – It almost is. It’s close, but it ain’t that. And also it’s not cool to be like “Erewhon is invited”, or “where’s Erewhon going?” It’s not cool to do that. – That’s not cool. – That’s not cool. Don’t even try that. – But it doesn’t stop me. What’s Erewhon up to? – This is so thick, there’s too much toppings on it. – Ooh, is heavy. – You don’t want your pizza crust to be that floppy. – A lot more Chicken. Chicken. – Yeah, I’m forced to do the fold on this one, because it’s the only way to keep it together. – They taste very similar. Even though they don’t look the same. I’m actually feeling like more chicken is not necessarily better. – Whole Foods is Tangier. It’s the right amount of chicken. This is too much chicken, I’m sorry. I know you’re trying to justify charging $36 for it. – I agree. – But it got too floppy. – If you put that much topping on a pizza, it doesn’t cook properly. – Do I remember correctly, that your oldest son took a date to Erewhon? – Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s the thing that they said What the kids are doing now. – I mean, it is fun to just walk around in there. You would take Jesse on dates to Walmart. – Target. – Okay, all right, yeah, yeah, yeah. You have standards. And now you’ve passed it along to him and it’s the Erewhon version. – It’s fun to walk around the store. – How did it go? – Well first, you text the store before you go in. (crew laughing) – Date alert. – You say, “I’m gonna be on a date. Keep it cool.” And then they text back and they say, “Who is this?” – “Can you call me?” – Yeah. It’s weird. Yeah. And then you call ’em and you have a conversation where that you tell ’em that you’re gonna go on a date. – I’ma give this a solid eight. and I’m gonna give this a solid seven. Seven for me. – I’m going all the way to six. I’m sorry, Erewhon. So Erewhon’s just, they’re just not quite- – They’re trying too hard. – Getting there. – Because they’ve gone too far. (upbeat rock music) There’s a rumble in the bowels of the internet. People are talking about the next Good Mythical Evening. It’s happening. Pain or pleasure? You decide. Tickets are on sale now. – The event goes down August 24th at 10:00 PM Eastern, 7:00 PM Pacific. It’s streaming on Kiswe, and this year we’re taking it up a notch because you are going to have the power, the power of choice, pain versus pleasure, at multiple points throughout the night. – Well, we have the power to be naughty. To do things that we don’t normally do. Like inebriate ourselves. – Everyone’s got power. – Everyone is empowered. – We’re gonna be inebriated, and we’re gon be buck wild, and you need to be ready for it, all right. So if you’re ready for it, buy a ticket. And if you’re really ready for it, then you can watch it at an Alamo Drafthouse in locations across the United States. – The United States? – Yeah, yeah. – Alamo tickets are very limited, so grab those tickets early before they sell out if you wanna have that communal Good Mythical Evening experience. For all the tickets, go to goodmythicalevening.com and buy a ticket. – Period, period. Buy a ticket. I guarantee it. I guarantee you’ll love it. – [Stevie] This round is all about chipotle chicken sandwiches. On Rhett’s side is Whole Foods’s for $10. And on Link’s is Erewhon’s for $15. – Is it Whole Foods’s? – Whole Foods’s. – So this chicken is just ground chicken on a, with some toppings. – Ground chicken? – Well, chopped, like- – You mean sliced chicken? – Yeah, it’s just sliced. – But then this one is almost ground. – Oh, so that’s where your head was. – And it’s got the chipotle stuff in it so I’m predicting this one’s gonna be better this round. I’m adding that element. – It looks better. It looks a lot better. When I get a sandwich like this, what I typically do is I take this off. – Yeah, we’ve all seen it many times. – And then I just, I eat it like this. – What do you mean by that? “When I see a sandwich like this,” that has two pieces of bread around some ingredients, I do like this. I take one of the pieces of bread off- – When the bread is tall, I kinda want less bread. This bread is so tall, I don’t want another bread. – [Stevie] But you went for the tomato. – I am tasting that and I’m not liking it at all. I thought it was a pepper. But yeah, it was a tomato and I’m unhappy. I give it a zero. – I think it might have been a, it’s sun dried though. – No, it’s not. – It’s roasted. – It’s roasted, but it’s not roasted enough. Whew. – That’s not a bad sandwich at all. Not a bad sandwich at all. – Almost turned over my, my milk guys, sorry. – Now, you know what I do when I see a sandwich- – Standing over there waiting or clean up my milk. Whoop! – When I see a sandwich like this, I just, I pick it up and I take a bite of it. – Yeah, me too dude. Me too! ‘Cause it’s little thin slices. Mm. Avocado slices throughout the bottom. – The avocado’s making it a little mushier than it needs to be. All I’m gonna say. – But the bread’s holding up. – Man, it almost looks like tuna because they mixed it in with something. Tastes great. This is super, super good. I was right. This one’s definitely taking this round. Agreed? – No, I don’t know if I agree, bro. – What? – When I see a sandwich like that I take things off of it. I wanna just get a taste of this chicken. Do you know that the flagship Whole Foods has a ice skating rink? – Really? – Yep. – You wanna go? – Is there beer? Is that where they keep their beer cold, underneath? They’re fancy schmancy? – [Stevie] I heard that’s where you have to go to the frozen food section. So it’s just a bunch of people- – That would be cool. – Yeah. – I’ll say one thing. It certainly looks like it’s gonna taste better. – It is so much better, dude. I’m even eating yours now ’cause you opened it for me. So I’m gonna give this- – I don’t know man. Okay, I’m gonna ignore the tomato and I’m gonna give it a three. I still hated it. – Ooh. Yeah. Three. And I think, I mean for a sandwich, dude. Dude! – It’s got too much avocado on, it makes it too mushy. The chicken, there’s a consistency problem with this sandwich. And if you have ingredients that are this sloppy, you gotta have bread that holds up better than that bread. But I don’t think either one of these sandwiches is that great. I’m gonna give this one a five and this one a five. – I’m gonna give this one a seven ’cause it’s still just a sandwich. (upbeat rock music) – [Stevie] And of course you’re finishing your meal with some dessert. But we couldn’t just pick one. So you get to try two items from each store’s bakery. A classic chocolate chip cookie and a slice of New York cheesecake. On Rhett’s side, whole Foods charges $1.50 per cookie and their cheesecake is $4.99 a slice. And on Link’s side, Erewhon’s chocolate chip cookie is $4.50 and their cheesecake is $8.50 a slice. – A slice? – Mm hmm. – $8.50 cents for a slice of cheesecake? – I mean that’s how much you’d pay for a Cheesecake Factory slice, if not more. – But that’s a Cheesecake Factory. – Yeah, there ain’t nothing on this. – It’s a factory that makes cheesecake. I’m a pretty, in terms of prepackaged, which are not as good as a homemade thing, I’m pretty, big fan of that. I would think that you would like the consistency of that because it’s not too hard. – I do. Hold on. Oh, you’re going to- I just feel like we gotta do cookie to cookie ’cause we’ll get confused. – Look at how, it’s kind of, it kind of has a leathery look to it. – It looks like those cookies that the Cookie Monster brought. – Yeah, fake. It’s like it has a skin on it. – Cookie Monster brought his own cookies. – [Link] Does it have a skin? – They don’t skimp on ingredients. – Mm mm. Ooh, it’s really good. – That’s a pretty good cookie. – You know, I prefer less chips. – Oh, You like to have no chips, last time I talked. – I think I’m up to having, I’d like to have a chocolate chip cookie about this size- – With three chips. – Three chips in it. – Maybe two. That’d be perfect. This looks horrible, but it’s decent, it’s very decent. – I’m just surprised how different everything is. – Did you know that there was a novel named “Erewhon” by Samuel Butler? – Oh yeah, Samuel Butler. – Released in 1872. – And that’s what Erewhon was named after. The novel is a satirical story where illness is treated as a crime. And the founders felt it was a good fit with the business’s ethos. Okay, so now let’s go for the cheesecake. Some people may, if you eat this cookie, some people might say, “Ooh, I don’t like it. “There’s something weird about it.” – There’s always somebody out there that will do that. – I don’t know those people. – That’s pretty solid for cheesecake. It’s kind of asking for some toppings. – Yeah, it’s begging for toppings. – But both of them come like that. So we’re just- – It’s very soft. – It’s like the softest cheesecake, I could go to sleep on this cheesecake. – All right. I’m glad to get you several pieces. – But don’t sleep on it ’cause it’s good. Over here we got a darker crust. – This more like a graham cracker crust on the bottom. This is a better cheesecake. I’m a cheesecake fan. This has the, there’s a spongy nature that you want in a cheesecake. – Yeah, it’s better. – And it has a little bit more, it’s more classic. – I can taste more care. But I feel like even a low rent cheesecake can be good to you. – I just dropped this on the desk and I’m gonna eat it. – Give me your score for that. – Don’t rush me. – Fine, I’ll give you my score. Nothing’s jumping off the page, but I do feel like I need to give it a solid seven. – I’m gonna give it a six. – You’re just not wowed by it? I understand. – And I’m gonna give, I’m gonna give Erewhon, I’m gonna give these two an eight. – You know what, the cheesecake is better. I don’t like the cookies as much. That evens it out for me. I’m sticking with seven for both of these. – [Stevie] Before we reveal the totals, I did wanna say that there’s a stark difference in what we spent for this episode between the two places. So the total of everything we bought from Whole Foods was $56.48, and the same haul from Erewhon was $98.95. So nearly twice as much. – But- – Only let your son take a date there. – We don’t take price into account usually. This is like, which one tastes better? We let you take the price into account. This is about taste. – Let’s see the results. – [Link] 69 at Whole Foods just barely eeked out Erewhon. – [Rhett] By one point! – [Link] So Whole Foods got that lucky number. – This is the closest ever! – 69. – The closest ever in the history of Food Feuds. – It could not be closer. And I’ve been spending the last two minutes trying not to sneeze. – Oh. (crew laughing) What are you allergic to? – I don’t know. – High prices? What? We got scooters! Remember that? – Oh, I do. – High prices? – Don’t go to Erewhon. Go to Whole Foods. – Congratulations to Whole Foods. You are the Prince of Prepared Foods and you won a chance to sponsor a GMM episode that you will never redeem. (crew laughing) Thanks for subscribing and clicking that bell. – You know what time it is. – I’m Kevin. – And I’m Ellen. – We’re on our honeymoon in Ireland at the Cliffs of Moher, and it’s time to spin the Wheel of Mythicality. – Wheel of Mythicality. – It sound like I heard a crying child in the background. – It was a leprechaun. – Ah, yes. – Click the top link to watch us uncover Crazy grocery trivia and Good Mythical More. – And to find out where the Wheel of of Mythicality is gonna land- – [Rhett] Tickets for this year’s Good mythical Evening are on sale now. Go to goodmythicalevening.com for tickets and more information and tune in August 24th for an evening of pain and pleasure.