There may be some significant differences in how cats behave when humans are around, depending on whether they are indoor cats only, or whether they are indoor+outdoor cats.
Indoor+outdoor cats seem to have a lesser variety of indoor activities and skills than indoor cats. It's as if they come indoor mostly to eat, sleep and cuddle.
I have often seen this, but it really doesn't look like playing to me.
I have often seen what could be termed as "cat playing with its food" - which was much like a cat playing with a toy. But this looks quite different to the regular taking the food out of the bowl and carrying it somewhere else and eating it there.
It can be observed how a cat will carry a large chunk of food (such as a mouse, bird, piece of meat, or chunk of canned food) to some secluded place and eat it there, but not eat it from the bowl.
As for why they bat the dry food (but also canned food) out of the bowl: it seems to me they are trying to make it more bite-size that way and to avoid getting too messy while eating. We use spoons and forks to make food bite-size - ie. we somehow separate small portions from the heap on the plate. When a cat is taking the food out of the bowl, it achieves the same purpose - it separates it into small portions that the cat can readily eat without getting too messy around the mouth. (It is apparent by their scrupulous hygiene practices that cats do not like to be messy around the mouth, whiskers or paws, or anywhere for that matter.)
