Mumbai: She was game for sport but not for food
On the second day of their Mumbai trip, Prince William made a dosa, but Kate Middleton refused to taste it.
The two were meeting entrepreneurs at a grungy café with industrial interior décor called The Social.
Ensconced inside the decrepit Todi Mills Compound in Lower Parel - the booming new business district in the heart of central Mumbai - the café serves vintage and colonial Indian food in enamel platters and tiffin carriers and has a huge following.
The Duke and the Duchess of Cambridge were at the popular café on Sunday morning to launch an award for young entrepreneurs and to identify and support some of India's best and brightest start-ups, helping them to grow and internationalise their businesses.
Here, at one of the stalls, Bangalore's Eshwar Vikas was exhibiting his automatic dosa-making machine.
Prince William - invited by Vikas to try his hand - made a dosa on the automated machine.
"When it flipped on to a plate automatically, Prince William broke off a crispy portion from the edge of the dosa to taste. He said it was delicious. Then he turned to Kate and asked her if she wanted a bite. But she was not so sure and waved it away," said Vikas.
"When I told her that the machine could also make pancakes, she said everyone in London would want one of these," recounted Vikas.
Vikas, like many other entrepreneurs, was at the Todi Mills Social this morning to take part in the Tech Rocketship Awards 2016-17. The event was sponsored by the UK Trade and Investment in India.
Although Kate was cagey about the "automatic dosa", she was all ears for Sanskriti Dawle, who had created a Braille learning machine. Dawle won the Tech Rocketship award.
"Kate tried her hand at the Braille learning machine with her eyes blindfolded. She spelt out 'George' on the machine, she told everyone that it was her son's name," said Vikas.
After the event, the Duke and the Duchess left Mumbai for Delhi.