I was able to do a test meal at Satu'li Canteen. We were allowed to peek out at the rest of the land, but were brought in through the back and could only go as far as the outside seating at its entrance within the land. You could watch them painting the mecha-suit thing for Pongu Pongu and otherwise assembling the rest of the land.
Overall first impression - Satu'li reminds me of a mix of Sunshine Seasons circa 2005 (right after Soarin first opened) and Sanaa at AKL. For the seating area the semi-walls with the sort of rolling stone shape should ddefinitely remind you of one of those area, but then the base sort of modern composite tables and such distinctly reminds me of The Land redo. Like if Sanaa's decor was a museum pieces on exhibit at The Land, which happened to be housed in an old warehouse.
It' hard to explain but there's like 3 levels of "theme" being presented. First, the old quonset hut that was the canteen for the mining company. It's rusty and old. Then, the tourism ACE people move in and retrofit to go ultra modern. That's why it looks a lot like The Land in choices of finishes and such. Then because it's part of their cultural exhibit thing they have Navii items on display and then bring in the stone/mud walls as area dividers, and woven artwork hanging from the ceiling and such.
It's interesting. There is a LOT of queue for the ordering area which seems to outweigh the available seating. Ordering seems to all be ultra-modern atop old military type quonset. So you have like bare concrete walls with zone/sector/etc industrial stuff spray painted on with stencils that are fading away and then modern lighting and fixtures and such that would fit right in at Epcot. Lot of stainless steel. But to get to that ordering area you have to go under this massive area of woven hanging nets/panels.
In the mud/stone miniwalls they also have niches with navii artifacts like bowls and tools and such. So it very much feels like modern art museum with an otherworld exhibit. It also feels a little sparse, well, minimalist if anything. Tables and chairs are all modern.
On to the food. The cheeseburger pod was yummy. The boba that came on the coleslaw sort of thing was yummy.. the chips were just meh chips. I wish i had gotten the make-your-own beef bowl, but i wanted to try the pod in case those went away. The tofu bowl my friend had was yummy. The nonalcoholic drink was meh. Coke products were available and it's like electric umbrella where you fill it yourself.
Oo, you'll like this - real plates/bowls and silverware. The bowls are sort a resin thing and have a sort of asian aesthetic with the dark grey outer coat and the sort of teal or jade looking interior color. They're all in "natural" looking sort of handformed rough shapes too. The silverware is just silverware and the cups are the standard disney cups.
Didn't use them but the credit card readers at the order points have the ACE logo on their screen.
The blueberry cheesecake was a highlight, even if it does look like a weird alien egg. There's a glass walled area where you see them cooking on a big grill thing.
Being that close the mountains they still felt a little small - like not tiny, but smaller than Everest or Hogwarts which both feel like they're very big when you're near them.
How to best capture the overall feel.. the layering.. You sit at a modern table made of some interesting composite in a very modern chair with an interesting geometric lattice back, and then look up at the old rusty quonset hut ceiling - the old rusty air system linger up there in the darker area.. below which is brand new stainless steel ductwork and lighting fixtures with ultra-white bulbs and such.. and then hanging down amid that is woven navii art pices that usually wrap around a hanging navii light fixtures.. a nut, a shell, etc.. like the ones seen in the pathway lights so far.
Looking out into the land you could also see rusty old pipework, then some super modern scifi looking metal thing, and then some navii artpiece or something.