Or perhaps they are working upon leaving the plane? And flying again the next day? That tends to be my schedule, which is why I pay for F instead of J -- I need to be able to sleep undisturbed on the plane and usually that is possible in F but not in J. While I rave about the food and wine on CX and sometimes other airlines, it isn't why I pay that kind of money. It is for the sleep (and jet lag avoidance by being able to stay on my own strange schedule).
As for the catering out of LAX, it is dodgy. Sometimes good but often below the quality of SFO and HKG (all airlines out of LAX seem to have this problem). Out of LAX the JL service is not competitive with SQ and CX due to poorer F cabin. JL does use nicer equipment for LHR-NRT-JFK and those flights do offer F service comparable to CX and SQ (though SQ has dropped a lot in quality during the past year).

That is one expensive nap!

It would be nice to be able to fly easterly to BKK using those JAL services!

Otherwise, the wisdom and experience on this board speaks highly for CX!

Thanks