Thanks to the many wise birds on FT I used my avios points to book JL44\43 LHR-HND-LHR in F.
Good move. First on JL was leagues ahead of BA.
The trip started off with a bit of a panic as my MAN-LHR flight was badly delayed and I thought I was going to miss my connection,.Luckily the outbound JL flight was also delayed, so I got to spend an hour at the departure gate recovering my puff from running to make what I thought was a 20% chance connection.
The seat and cabin were excellent, the best I've flown.
The service was exceptional with a lot of pro-active refills of many different beverages and lots of personal interaction.
I know this style of service doesn't suit some people, but I was on the trip of a lifetime so I enjoyed being pampered.
I pre-ordered the Japanese meal each way. The one back from Japan was better (it had abalone liver sauce which is my favourite and also uni and other prime stuff) but the meal on the way out wasn't too shabby either.
Out of a 10 day trip I ate Western food only once which was a fried egg breakfast in a hotel. As a side note, Japan really knows it's eggs and I'm quite happy to eat them uncooked.
Queen of Blue tea was great. The other beverage options weren't particularly awesome. I managed to get two glasses of Salon on the way back, but they had only loaded one bottle so they ran out after that (order early folks). The other bubbles turned out to be a bit acidic for me, so I turned to the nihonshu and shochu options. The shochu options were good. The sake options were a little sweeter than I would have preferred. (this is all personal preference, I make no judgement on the objective quality or provenance of the drinks).
I cheekily asked for the Western caviar course in addition to the second meal snack (pastrami sandwich) on the way back. It was provided with no problem. Not the best caviar unfortunately but I was keen to try as a datapoint for other travellers
On the way back I delayed the main meal by 4-5 hours so I could have it for dinner rather than lunch. It wasn't clear from the JAL website that you could dine on demand, but it does seem to be the case. It did mean I had to eat quietly because the cabin was set up for sleep mode at that point.
Only 8 seats in F. All taken on the way out, only 5 out of 8 filled on the way back.
On the return flight I fancied some food and went to the galley to see if anyone was around. The CC were behind a second curtain and seemed to be chatting, so I went back to my seat and pressed the call button. Within a couple of seconds someone was there with a smile. This is definitely not what I'm used to on BA
I used the bedding on the way out but not on the way back. It was good quality but I ended up getting about 2 hours sleep each way.
Not flight related, but I tried CoCo. There definitely needs to be a foreign person waver for the strength 6-10 options as the 4 strength I had barely possessed any heat at all. It was OK and I'm glad I experienced it but I wouldn't make it a regular if I was there. There was a lot more food in a portion than I realised as what I thought were plates in the pictures were actually bowls with a little depth to them.
To be the troll in the room, I have now tried Osaka and Hiroshima style okonomiyaki and prefer the Hiroshima style.
To add to the previous thread on this it seems that ekinomiyaki is one that you eat in a train station.
Once again thanks to all in the various FT forums for helping me get the best bang out of my buck on airline travel and rewards, it's really appreciated.