MONTREAL -- I've been captivated by Montreal since my first trip there almost 20 years ago, drawn in by two things in particular: the bowls of hot chocolate offered at the city's many cafés -- hey, why settle for a measly cup? -- and the people who packed the streets in July and August, soaking in the two-month party they call summer. It seemed as busy as midtown Manhattan at rush hour, but these people were smiling.

So when my oldest and best friend and I realized that our 40th ''anniversary'' was approaching, I managed to talk her into a celebratory trip over a long weekend.

TO THE PLATEAU

When I arrived on a summer-like fall afternoon, a day before Kathy, I hit the streets. From our hotel downtown, I walked a mile or so, past the edge of Chinatown and through the Latin Quarter to the Plateau, the neighborhood where my affection for the city first took root.

Ahhhh, the Plateau. Pretty much in the middle of the part of the city frequented by visitors, the neighborhood is all about strolling, sipping and shopping: chic marries shabby-chic, college professor meets slacker, with an impressive assortment of retro record stores, independent bookstores, artfully graffitied walls, more than a few ''tatouage'' parlors, and ethnic restaurants everywhere.

Along the leafy side streets, spiral staircases wind their way up the outsides of cozy rowhouses. A few blocks away, Mount Royal, the modest mountain and majestic park, rises over the city.

A half-hour in the Plateau and I felt back in the groove. The pungent smoke wafting out the doors of Portuguese rotisseries, the burnished yellows and oranges of the maples along the sidewalks, the tangle of overheard languages: My senses felt fully open. This, all of this, in its understated splendor, was what I wanted to show her.

But first, La Binerie.

In travel, and OK, in the rest of life as well, there is no doubt: I lead with my stomach. The rest of me merely struggles to keep up. So the next morning -- Kathy wouldn't arrive until later -- I headed back to the Plateau, this time on the subway, to La Binerie (The Beanery), a nearly 70-year-old, bare-bones eatery renowned for its Quebecois specialties.

Along with the requisite eggs and home fries, my plate was promptly piled with four kinds of pork: ham, Canadian bacon, sausage and the salt pork that the beans were cooked in. As Charlotte the spider wrote of her friend Wilbur, this was ``some pig.''

Then Kathy arrived, and we started walking.

PLAIN TO FANCY

We walked along the lovely Rue Laurier from east to west, from a low-key weekend street market to the decidedly upmarket blocks of fancy shops west of Rue St. Laurent. That street, also called ''The Main,'' has historically served as the unofficial line separating the city's French culture from its English-speaking stronghold.

Today's Montreal is often a wonderful jumble, with strong strands of distinct cultures living amongst one another. It's been called a salad bowl -- the concept of Canadian diversity as separate components complementing each other, as compared with the American ideal of the melting pot.

In few places is this more true than in Mile End, a historically Jewish enclave that was one of my favorite discoveries of the trip.

To the outsider, the place offers a kaleidoscopic array: The Asian teenager with an Orthodox Jew's side locks ambles along Rue St. Viateur. At a street corner, black-clad Goth girls check out South American pan flutists. Butcher shops of seemingly every Eastern European persuasion line the streets.

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