Like I said I had no better place to be so indeed I made it into a customer service benchmark.
At the 3 hour mark, the FA was busy serving customers in another row, and it felt unnecessary and DYKWIA to call for attention. It was absolutely no big deal, and I assumed they would get to me in due time. They did at the 3.30 mark which I felt was still within reason.
However, by not being ready to serve anything by then and needing another 45 minutes to "heat" a cold pre-plated meal makes me think the crew on this flight was not experienced or trained well enough to fulfil reasonable expectations on the dine-on-demand concept.
They approached me in the beginning of the flight asking when and what I wanted to eat, and as it was a 16 hour flight, timing on meal service was going to make a difference for jetlag management. What is why I opted for a specific time, instead of just call when I want to eat which I usually do.
Now, I did not at all imply that oversights could not happen nor that staff needs to be perfect. I am just checking to see what expectation one can have on the dine-on-demand concept. If a 1.15 delay is within the standards then so be it.