Ice Golas: Mumbai’s Girgaon Chowpatty is a Gola paradise you cannot miss

Gola at Chowpatty

Girgaon Chowpatty in Mumbai is one of the most frequented places in the city. Not only does it serve breezy beach walks along a magnificent skyline but also has the most lip-smacking street food that one can ever relish. Be it Gupta Snacks Corner's Pav Bhaji, Badshah's Pani Puri or Sharmajee's Bhelpuri, Girgaon Chowpatty's offerings have their own fan base. However, during summers, what steals the show is the iconic Ice Gola.

Numerous stalls offering a huge variety of Ice golas or Chuskis frequently get lined up with people of all ages speaking volumes about the popularity of this icy delight. With a plethora of options, it might get difficult for you to choose one, but if you ask the locals, Jai Jawaan Gola is the one haunt that you will definitely be redirected to.

Lined up with colourful gola syrup bottles, this stall is known to offer one of the biggest varieties of Gola. But before we take you through the journey of flavours, here is a piece of nostalgia that makes this Gola review so special.

Every time one bites into these desi treats, they can't help but venture down into memory lane. For most of us, Ice Golas are one of those Indian summer delights that hold a treasure trove of nostalgia. While growing up, this writer has memories of a Gola Wala who frequently visited her society serving Chuski or Barf ka gola. The Gola lovers patiently encircled his cart as he churned out shaved ice from his ice-grinding machine and soaked it in a cocktail of flavoured syrups. To be very candid, overlooking hygiene or health, slurping on these icy treats was a carefree pleasure and perhaps still is.

It is this fandom of Ice Golas that in a metro city like Mumbai, you will still find numerous Gola-selling shacks, shops and even bars if not the carts. From a simple Gola that used to be offered in only five to six basic flavours some twenty years back, this desi treat has been upgraded with rich toppings and unique flavours enticing its new-age customers along with the older ones.

Just like the infrastructure, houses and humans, Gola too has been reinvented with time but what remains the same for us is the joy of slurping on these thandi-thandi chuski. Braving competition from western Sorbet, Ice-cream sundaes and Gelato, Ice Gola has stood the test of time. Thankfully, this desi treat has not diminished and still continues to attract fans for that slurpy flavorful bite in places like Girgaon Chowpatty.

Coming back to our tasting session at the Jai Jawan Gola stall, we really wanted to begin with the basics and hence ordered the Kala Khatta gola. Sweet and tart sprinkled with spices, this flavour of Gola is a party in the mouth. With its cocktail of chatpata and meetha flavour, Kala Khatta is as explosive as it can get.

If you are sceptical about trying a specific flavour, worry not, as Mix Gola flavour is your saviour. A blend of four flavours including Pineapple, Orange, Rose and Green mango, this gola variety offers a different range of flavours in each bite letting you choose your favourite.

When recommending Golas, it would be a sin not to review the cult favourite, that is, Malai Gola. This sweet-tasting dense variety is offered in varied flavours from rose to chocolate chip and we ordered the former. A thick layer of Malai dunked in aromatic and sweet rose syrup was too good to be true and easily became a reason for us to visit Girgaon Chowpatty again.

Sometimes, it is these joyful revisits to things that we love, that make our life more enjoyable. No matter how much we swoon over Sorbet and click pictures of those ‘Insta-worthy' Gelato parlours, true joy is in simple delights. It lights up only when we melt in a nostalgic taste of the past, the roots from where we come from, isn't it?