Satu'li Canteen Restaurant in Pandora

Posted by Mike

Apr 19, 2020 7:38 PM

Let’s take a trip to the moon of Pandora and find a spot to grab a bite to eat! In our Satu’li Canteen restaurant guide, we’ll help you plan your visit to Pandora – The World of Avatar and eat some otherworldly food!

Opening Date	May 27, 2017
Food Type	American
Restaurant Type	Quick Service
Meal Period	Lunch and Dinner
Reservations	Not Accepted
Mobile Order	Yes, recommended
Character Dining	No
Disney Dining Plan	Yes, quick-service credit

Satu’li Canteen Restaurant Location

Satu’li Canteen is located in the north end of Pandora – The World of Avatar.

Satu’li Canteen is the main eatery in Pandora – The World of Avatar. The nice thing about Pandora – The World of Avatar is that it is kind of sectioned off nicely once you get the feel for the land. The attractions are basically on one end of the land and the shopping and dining is on the other.

A large thatched roof marks the entrance to Satu’li Canteen at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

Satu’li Canteen Review and Best Bites

Satu’li Canteen started a trend of high quality quick-service meals that we saw continued in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Docking Bay 7 Food and Cargo. To this day, Satu’li Canteen remains one of our top choices for dining at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and even Walt Disney World. For our full review from opening, check out our post below!

Theming and Story

Once the main mess hall of the RDA base in the Valley of Mo’ara, Satu’li Canteen is now owned and operated by the Alpha Centauri Expeditions (ACE) tour company. A restaurateur hired by ACE has redesigned the once utilitarian Quonset hut structure into a beautiful museum-like dining room.

Featuring Na’vi art and cultural items, the Satu’li Canteen now reflects a new friendship and cultural understanding that exists between the humans on Pandora and the indigenous Na’vi.

The interior has been transformed, with the colorful Na’vi items filling the walls and hanging from the ceiling. Most of the items were gifted to humans by the Omaticaya clan living in Mo’ara. Hand woven tapestries, natural Pandoran elements, and even cooking tools can all be found inside the restaurant along with sketches and photographs on the walls that help explain their significance. With this unique display of cultural items, the Satu’li Canteen visually represents the positive influence the Na’vi have had on the humans living and working on Pandora.

The open ceiling draws the eyes upwards towards the hand-woven art pieces. The contrast of the old RDA facility ceiling with the soft art of the Na’vi provides an excellent commentary on the conflict, and eventual peace, that led to a place like the Mo’ara Valley.

Best Bites at Satu’li Canteen

If you don’t have time to read through the full review above, here are our favorites from Satu’li Canteen!

Slow-Roasted Sliced Grilled Beef – Slow-Roasted Sliced Grilled Beef marinated in a blend of Garlic, Herbs, Red Pepper Spice, and Red Wine Vinegar topped with Crunchy Vegetable Slaw and Boba Balls.

It’s rare to see a meat of this quality come out of a Disney quick service. The beef was sliced into long, thin portions and was some of the most tender I’ve ever had on property. The texture reminded me of a roast beef and the slow-roasted flavor was delicious. The whole grain rice wasn’t my favorite base, but I did enjoy the chimichurri.

Cheeseburger Pods – Steamed Cheeseburger Pod stuffed with Ground Beef, Ketchup, Mustard, Pickle, and Cheddar Cheese served with Crunchy Vegetable Slaw and Vegetable Chips.

Perhaps one of the greatest tragedies of recent memory has been the removal of the Cheeseburger Pods from the regular menu and pushing them to the kids menu. Their inclusion as a best bite is more of an “in memoriam” thing than anything else. You can still get a single Cheeseburger Pod on the kids menu if you’re interested.

The flavor was spot on to what you would expect from a typical cheeseburger. These are probably 5-8 bites each and feature quite a bit of bun. I think the real winner on this dish is the meat inside and would love for more of it to find its way into each pod. The chips were also quite good and were so fresh we thought Disney had baked them in-house.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Mousse

We really enjoyed this dish. Perhaps the most “alien” looking of the offerings at Satu’li Canteen, we found that the dessert was actually quite familiar. It more gelatinous than mousse on the texture scale. The balance between the passion fruit curd top and the blueberry base is excellent. The passion fruit curd is similar to the calamansi mousse at Tiffins, for those of you who have dined there.

Satu’li Canteen Tips

Just like most eateries, you’ll want to try and visit during “off” hours for the lowest waits. While there is a lot of indoor and (covered) outdoor seating, Satu’li Canteen will fill up quickly as one of the best quick service locations in all of Walt Disney World.

Mobile Order!

If you’re going to eat at Satu’li Canteen, we strongly recommend using Mobile Order.