I've flown CA in Y, JFK to PEK.

The interior, while slightly outdated, was not uncomfortable. My seats had limited recline, but there was a lot of pitch. I didn't feel trapped, and I'm a fat guy who routinely feels squeezed to death in Y.

The food was actually reasonably good (and far better than I expected), though they tried to kill us with too much of it.

I found a similar fare for the JFK<->PEK trip last May/June, but it was unbookable through their English site. It worked fine on the Chinese site. I ended up calling their NYC reservations desk and booking it that way (IIRC, there were payment issues using USD on the Chinese site).