Aside: DrivingRain, do you mind deleting the quote of my entire post from your post? You should be able to edit it even now. Thanks.

About the food:

An evaluation of the food depends on one's personal tastes and whether one normally dines at McDonalds, Mom&Pop Diner, or a home cooked gourmet meal.

I don't personally rave about any of the airline food whether it is SQ or anyone else. As long as they are not inedible.

Wine selection was decent. M&C for Champagne rather than DP as in SQ unfortunately . The Red Bordeaux was drinkable. It is always nice to have any Port after dinner.

All I can say is that the food on CO was decent enough to not distract for me. One highlight was the excellent ingredients for the Salad. Appetizer choice of Shrimp was disappointing. Shrimp turned out to be tough and dry.

The dim sum was ok.

The Grilled Chicken entree was good but not good enough for me to finish both pieces. The rice bowls were decent.

Bread selection was good all around.
They ought to provide olive oil as an alternative to Butter as SQ does.

The nuts were just Cashew nuts (also on SQ). I prefer a mix. Perhaps they are afraid of allergies.

Desert choice is really lacking. Just ice cream with toppings or cobbler with ice cream topping. They ought to provide more variety.

While I don't mind airlines substituting local products from the destination, they should never substitute chocolates with anything but from Europe. Chocolates from anywhere else just don't have enough Cocoa content and is dominated by Sugar and Vanillin. Hong Kong made pralines just don't cut it.

As far as competing with SQ is concerned, it is CO's business decision as to how they set the standard. You are right that they do not have to set the standards to SQ and such. Unfortunately, US airlines have a fairly low standard in service for international flights. So claims relative to those don't impress me much.