Meals orders in AC Business Class are generally taken in order of AC status. So you might see the Service Director or FA move around the cabin and not take orders by row. You are correct and AC does not offer the ability to pre-order meals, other than Special Meals.

Also, fyi, You can look up the menus (most of the time) on this page on AC's website. Menus are only posted for about 2 weeks at a time.

https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...e-service.html

I put in a random date of July 8 and it showed menus were available





And here's is the menu for AC 318 as an example (this link will only be live until the flight or when AC removes it from the page)

https://www.aircanada.com/content/da...485%20WEST.pdf