Had flowers and thank you cards:
1A
CX883 first week of Feb 2015 LAX-HKG
CX880 2nd week of Feb 2015 HKG-LAX

Their food has not been very good for about a decade now - used to be much better. For a long time now, it's been the same old choices of mains, the same (rubbish) "Chinese" dishes, and the new gimmicky caviar service without the Balik. And the desserts ex-UK and ex-US are not great either. The biggest issue is no choice of starter - it's either caviar or nothing. They do still do breakfast well if you do the western. The dim sum is just bad. They can't do it properly on a plane unless they steam it. It really is not done at the "F" class level at this point, compared to other carriers.

I've never had "flowers" ex-JFK or UK, only from HKG. Probably due to local rules?

I wonder why they don't update their meal choices in F ?
They seem to update their seats and lounges etc why not the onboard dining ?
Maybe they think its already quite good ?

I know with QF they update the F menus every three months.

You mean they don't?

Recent F experience
 

Flowers in F ex JFK several days ago. No note. Chinese dish not bad (curry chicken and sea bass). Red meat (lamb) as usual not good. Dessert, a Mandarian Oriental-inspired smores pretty good.

do you mind me asking
a.) which seat you were in (if not comfortable posting, was it aisle or window?)
b.) what is your status?

i'm curious to figure out if it's just random where the flowers go, and whether status matters in F for the notes.

Recent F experience
 

Had 4 seats. Ds and Ks.

You don't want to know what they were saying about you in the galley during your last flight.

Really cant understand why CX cannot up its food offering viz the other carriers

Flew my second time in CX First, this time from HND to HJG. I know its a short flight but the food was poor compared with other airlines J food.

More frustrating for me though was the over-attentive service that made it almost impossible to watch the movie. Literally every time I moved, the crew were there.

I know it's a matter of taste, and some people like this, but for me, the J service outbound was actually superior in that the crew seemed to 'read' my needs better.

Out of my 3 round trips in F during 2014, we had flowers only on legs out of HKG. I thought this was related to USA customs regulations concerning live plants, but other posters suggest that flights ex-USA had them. Interesting...

Food: Which HND-HKG sector were you on? Was it the morning flight? I've only ever flown the ~4pm ex-HND departure in F, and catering was superb with dinner...they load the Kaiseki, a lobster course, and lamb. However, I've flown ex-HKG to HND early morning and catering was, frankly, the same as J class just with fancier plating. Quite poor. No snacks. First time I ever went hungry on a CX flight. Perhaps it's similar ex-HND in the morning?

Service: Probably just due to the short flight...on every CX F flight except the Japan flights, I feel very comfortable saying the standard procedure is for them to retire to the galley and not be super proactive as you prefer. The only difference is that Japan F flights are vastly shorter than the regular F flight. And on a full load, the crew could literally spend half the flight just doing the meal service alone. The Kaiseki meal comes out in 4 courses (5?) IIRC. At least, this is my experience. The overwhelming majority of my CX F flights are not Japan (aka, long-hauls), but for the 4 sectors I think I've done to/from Japan in F, service has been up/down the aisles and it has been primarily due to the fact the cabin was full and crew were doing the service. Perhaps that's why?

Even on the long-haul sectors, you're bound to get "served" more when the FAs are doing something in the cabin. There's just a lot more down time on a 16 hour flight to JFK.

Similar experience here—card only JFK-YVR (but I saw that pax flying just YVR-HKG got them). No flowers when boarding @ JFK, and on my flight they must have been put in while I was asleep (no flowers at turndown, but were there when I woke up)

Last week LAX-HKG-LAX, flowers both segments. Removed just prior to landing in LAX. No hand written notes. In December in J I did get the handwritten note on the HKG-LAX segment

Great F crews though

Flowers removed just prior to landing? Now there's something I've never seen. Is theft of these flowers a problem?