The thin crust sings with an audible crunch while staying bendable, and the chicken bacon ranch was just ranchy enough.
We haven't been to Monical's Pizza in Fishers (view on map) for years even though we drive past it literally every day on 37. It's spelled Monical not monocle 🧐 This place has locations all over Illinois and a handful in Indiana - so it's not exactly a local joint but definitely not a national pizza corporation. I think this was our third time here. The individually wrapped forks were a nice COVID touch.
The server was super nice, and our breadsticks came out shockingly fast. Almost too fast! I guess we were the only people dining in on Labor Day, so I shouldn't be that surprised. The order came with 5 sticks and we tried both marinara and cheese dipping sauce.
The bread sticks taste exactly like the inside of a soft pretzel without the brown outer part. They also have large grain salt like pretzel salt, which also makes them feel more pretzeley. They have some heft to them, they are on the denser side when it comes to sticks, but in a good way. The cheese sauce was kind of generic tasting, like nacho cheese dip from an ice rink concession stand, but the marinara had a fresh sweet tomato flavor. I know it's weird to say the tomato sauce had a tomato flavor, but it was like garden tomato not Prego tomato.
My thin crust Chicken Bacon Ranch pizza was excellent. It was party cut into squares with great smokey bacon flavor and real big chunks of chicken. It had just enough ranch flavor, not too much. I was a little worried it would taste like ranch spread out over the entire crust, but it was more of an Alfredo white sauce with ranch flavoring mixed in, not just straight ranch.
The crust was superb and probably my favorite part of the pizza. Somehow it manages to have a crackle crunch without being hard or overdone. I think it has to do with the little air pockets on the bottom. It's got a cracker crunch to it but stays flexible and bendable. Usually the only time I get this crispness is when the outer edge is hard and tough - so this was a great texture experience.
The bacon pieces were a variety of textures, which was good and bad. Some were chewy nuggets and some were harder pieces that got stuck in my teeth. I guess that's what you get with real bacon cut up rather than bacon bits.
Chris didn't like his pan pizza that much. He got pepperoni and bacon as usual. There were heaps of bacon, which was great, but the crust on the pan was just a lot of spongy bready nothing. It wasn't a presentation dance floor to showcase the toppings, it was just pizza bread. The pepperoni had some decent spice to it, and the Italian seasoning dusted over the whole thing gave it just a little bit of interest. But overall nothing to write home about. He said he wouldn't get it again.
So there you have it, the thin crust is an achievement that somehow combines an audible crunch with bendable squares.