A single file of shoppers snaking by fresh produce stalls, aromatic sidewalk food and ethnic specialty shop windows ... Yes, a Saturday morning trip into the Strip District, Pittsburgh's bustling market area that runs along Penn Avenue and Smallman Street near Downtown, is an adventure in my book.

But to my kids, it's a chore.

"It's boring!" came the chorus, right on cue. Add rolling eyes, mix in deep sighs -- all part of the drearily predictable recipe of tween-age passive resistance.

So what to do? Luckily, I had a plan, grounded in the only behavioral modification technique proven to work in child-rearing: bribery. With the promise of monetary prizes, I lured them into spending several hours on a scavenger hunt for quirky, traditional (for Pittsburgh) and just plain weird things sold in The Strip.

I handed each a hand-written list of items to be chased down, a digital camera for documenting what they actually found, a chaperone (they are 12 and 9) and a challenge: the one who finds the most items by lunch gets the biggest purse.

On these lists were fresh tortillas, live striped bass, roast beef sandwiches with fries on the inside, frozen chicken feet, cold yogurt soda and unusual candy-coated vegetables, to name a few. The catch, unknown to the kids, was that all items would be found in the locations where I wanted to shop. Therein lies the power of the keeper of the scavenger hunt list. In the end, the children were occupied in their game and I enjoyed a whine-free three hours of shopping in The Strip.

I believe marketers call that a win/win.

First stop: Lotus Food Co., 1649 Penn Ave., 412-281-3050.

Authentic Asian markets can be counted on for items that will both amaze and repulse Western observers.

The automatic doors on this one funnel patrons onto grayish floors that guide shoppers up and down rows of white metal shelves that house every noodle, pickle, rice, bun, tea, chili and choy to make any stir fry that much more authentic.

But it's the nose-to-tail stuff that ropes in the kids.

"Are you sure the chicken feet are supposed to be in case 26?" asked Owen, my 12-year-old. "I can only find duck feet over here by the pig's ears." There are also fish heads, gnarly beef tendons and whole Peking ducks hanging to add to either shopping or scavenger hunt lists.

Lotus Food sells the best handmade bean curd in all of Western Pennsylvania, according to Katy Tsai, who drives 60 miles from Waynesburg to get it steaming hot on Saturday mornings. "It's the freshest taste. It's wonderful crispy on the outside and smooth on the inside when you deep fry it," she said.

Second stop: Wholey's Fish Market, 1711 Penn Ave., 412-391-3737.

For the hunter, Wholey's is about the thrill of the catch. Meander past the full complement of freshly dressed (read, already gutted) fish sitting on ice in cases that run the length of the store, and admire the tanks brimming with live Maine lobsters, Dungeness crabs and swimming striped bass.

Scavenger hunters turned fishermen pick one that looks good, and a Wholey's trained professional will pull it from the water, kill, clean and scale it to specification. Mercifully, Eliza (my squeamish 9-year-old) was looking down at her pad to scratch the live lobster from her list, as the rest of us watched a flapping bass be silenced by its turn on the chopping block -- a plastic structure with holes for the unmentionables to fall into.

Third stop: Prestogeorge Fine Foods, 1719 Penn Ave., 412-471-0133.

I'm secure enough in my track record of placating my children to admit this stop was solely for my benefit. This establishment offers 200 loose teas and 100 coffee varieties, and they all need to be tasted.

Both scavengers had a coffee roaster on their lists. I didn't require them to locate the Master Roaster, a Greek man by the name of Sotos Kolocouris. But he's certainly worth finding. Mr. Kolocouris has been elevating coffee beans to full flavor for more than 15 years, using one of two cast-iron Jabez Burns roasters brought in from New York to help him get the job done right. Together, man and machines roast about 1,000 pounds -- a half-ton -- of coffee every Saturday.

Fourth stop: Labad's, 1727 Penn Ave., 412-261-0419.

At Labad's Mediterranean Grocery, a no-frills shop in front leads to the more interestingly Arabian-inspired decor of the cafe in the back where you can sample gyros, falafel and baklava. The shop is operated by Syrian brothers William and Larry Labad. The latter has a handlebar mustache, which would have been a good item to hunt for had I known it existed when I drew up the list.

My kids were on the prowl for yogurt soda and pomegranate molasses. The former -- which Larry Labad assured me is a wildly popular item, even as I crinkled my nose at the idea of carbonated dairy products -- was easy to locate in the repurposed Coke cooler. The latter, a staple in Middle Eastern cuisine that provides a sweet-tart background to many dishes, was well tucked on the bottom shelf just before the jugs of olive oil and barrels of olives for sale. Waiting for the kids to find their appointed items was not taxing, though, as I sipped a tiny cup of Syrian coffee, sweetened by a touch of cardamom.

Fifth stop: Penzeys Spices, 1729 Penn Ave., 412-434-0570.

Penzeys Spices, primarily a mail-order spice purveyor out of Michigan, has a few actual stores like this one. The Penn Avenue location is loosely organized alphabetically. My list could have included anything from ajwain seed (a Pakistani spice) to zatar (a Middle Eastern blend). But because I was exploring the shop with a 12-year-old boy who is still wildly amused by flatulence humor, I sent him looking for the Mexican spice: epazote. While this herb adds a musky lemony flavor to dishes, it also has a calming effect on the gassiness famous to some of the foods from that region.

Sixth stop: Reyna Foods, 2023 Penn Ave., 412-261-2606.

It is a very difficult thing to walk past the chorizo tacos and the cinnamon churros being assembled by deft Latino hands in the stall in front of this bodega, but pressing on to find the freshly baked flour tortillas made on a combined press/oven/conveyor belt contraption in the rear of the store is worth the sacrifice. These still warm bread rounds are perfectly soft, with enough elasticity to provide confidence that all taco fillings will remain inside the tortilla and not end up on your shirt. Not that taco fillers were a critical component here. My kids ate half the bag of 8-inch rounds naked before we left the shop.

Seventh stop: Peace, Love and Little Donuts, 2018 Smallman St., 412-489-7693.

Owner Ron Razete doesn't have an exact count on the number of little doughnuts (the "little" is 21/2 inches and the "mini" is 1 inch across) that have gone out the door of this tiny shop since he opened last August. But he does know they are selling like hotcakes.

The list of hunt-worthy items include Maple Bacon, Sicilian sea salt and chocolate, Banana Split and Saigon cinnamon sugar varieties, just to name a few.

Eighth stop: Mon Aimee Chocolat, 2101 Penn Ave., 412-395-0022.

I can no longer buy the sea-salted caramels that sit in a case near the cash register in Mon Aimee chocolates, which boasts a supplier list that is representative of 26 different countries -- actually 27 if you factor in the gourmet confections made in the USA. However cliched I may be, I cannot eat just one. I literally eat the whole quarter-pound bag in one sitting. And I need to stay away from the coffee-flavored, handmade marshmallows, too. But just for the sake of the hunt, you understand, I went in. After all, my son had to find a Sidney Crosby chocolate trading card, and my daughter was in search of three types of candy bars you typically find only in England (Cadbury Dairy Milk, Roundtree's Fruit Pastilles and Nestle's Mint Aero).

Ninth stop: Strip District Meats, 2123 Penn Ave., 412-391-1762.

Until 2007, the Turkas family ran this old-fashioned butcher's shop as Farmers Choice Poultry and Meats. But only the name has changed; the atmosphere did not. The patchwork black and while linoleum floors serve as the corridor between cases of packaged beef, pork and chicken on the right and meats cut to order on the left. The owners also keep a wide variety of offal and special meats such as goat, pheasant and buffalo in the freezer. But my kids would no sooner talk to a stranger than they would knowingly eat a mountain oyster (which are for sale, in fact). They needed instead to find homemade beef jerky, just $1 a stick.

Tenth stop: Stamoolis Brothers, 2020 Penn Ave., 412-471-7676.

The variety of grains I could buy in bulk initially attracted me to this Mediterranean merchant, but it's the olive oil selection that keeps me coming back. I can sample varieties from Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal here. I happily tasted the five or six on offer in the deli area while the hunters searched for candy-coated chickpeas, a dozen dried baby eggplants wrapped in a rubber band, and mastic chewing gum.

Eleventh stop: Pennsylvania Macaroni Co., 2010-2012 Penn Ave., 412-471-8330.

"Penn Mac" is simply a time-sucking enterprise. I mean that in the very best possible way. There are countless nooks and crannies to explore in this place, each guaranteed to contain an item that you've never seen before. I had to keep the hunt simple here and stick to my kids' first love: pasta. They each had to find a pasta shape they'd not eaten before. For Owen it was zitoni, a supersized ziti appropriate for a kid who can eat a pound of pasta in one sitting and still be hungry. For Eliza, it was Creste di Gallo, which translates loosely as "coxcomb": The shape resembles the red fleshy crest atop the heads of turkeys, pheasants and chickens.

Final stop: Primanti Brothers, 46 18th St., 412-263-2142.

There should be one of those historic plaques here. For this was the site at which the first 4-inch-high sandwich with fries and coleslaw sitting between the bread slices, next to the cheese, tomato and your choice of 21 kinds of meat, was built. But the sandwiches are their own monument.

With recent nationwide coverage from the likes of the Travel Channel and more than a dozen outlets in and around the city, it's arguable that the idea of Pittsburgh's almost-famous sandwich can no longer be contained within The Strip (and in fact there are more than 15 more in Western Pennsylvania and a couple in Florida). That said, it's a pretty amazing site for a couple of young scavengers to witness for the first time -- as well as a pretty hearty lunch for parents who spent three hours food shopping with their kids in tow.

And the winner of the scavenger hunt? That was Eliza, with a purse of $2.01. Owen lost with $2. So goes equity parenting.

Doug Oster writes a blog, "Growing With Doug," exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.