I usually sleep through most of the flight between dinner and landing on TATL flights so I don't know about hot bites. On TPAC flights, I've been able to get hot bites on all flights (EWR-NRT/HKG,SFO-NRT/ICN/AKL/SYD) regardless of direction. However, I've only been offered once, all other times, I had to request it. I don't call it "hot bites", I just say "do you have anything hot?" It is usually very hot as it has been sitting in the oven all night