Day 5: Plano Texas, Monroe Louisiana.

It was a dull 300 miles stretch from Plano to Manroe, Louisiana on highway 20 with no major tourist attraction to stop by. We woke up late rested and hanged out at Plano until it was noon. Tara was not done playing at Plano as she found the backyard trampoline ‘bouncy bouncy’ while we unhurried on a heavy breakfast. Two hours into I20, we took a BBQ lunch break, following a highway billboard that said ‘most famous Texas BBQ’.  BBQ ribs here are sold by weight and we ordered a couple of pounds with some coleslaw and other sides. While discussing how good the BBQ was we also planned to visit a nearby museum of Oil and Gas. Oil gushed in to Texas in the early 20^th century and so we thought visiting a museum would be a good ay of spending some time. May be we spent an hour in the BBQ joint and at the end we felt tired thinking about walking in a Museum. So we proceeded to Monroe and arrived at Best Western by 5:30.

Monroe was not known to us for anything but we wanted to checkout there is any restaurant nearby that served a New Orleans cuisine. Northern Louisiana is not even close to their coastal southern part when it comes to food but we just thought there might be at least some restaurants that served the popular Cajun food.  Copeland’s was suggested by the staff in Best Western and on our way we stopped at Target to get Cinderella  blanket for Tara and it was nice to get a glimpse of local crowd, shopping.   Copeland’s looked swanky and carried some local impressive brews on the tap. We ordered shrimp creole and etouffee  as entrees and the creole was simply the best we tasted yet.   Creole is a fusion of French, African and Spanish cooking styles but is considered as a Louisiana original.  Surprisingly, it tasted close to the shrimp curry we make back home with its spice twists and rice combinations.  Etouffee, was competitive with its spicy Cajun crawfish made almost dry in a roux sauce.  Quite impressed with the meal, we also ordered a slice of fresh ripe strawberry cheesecake from their bakery and returned to the hotel stuffed.  Monroe did not feel like a boring place anymore.