If you're not familiar with spicy foods, or come expecting the cuisine here to be similar to the imitation Thai dishes you may find at other restaurants aroundCairo, you'll be surprised with Birdcage. This Thai restaurant at the Semiramis Intercontinental in Garden City has food that is bursting with flavours and spices – what they call mild is already quite hot for this reviewer's taste; so be sure to order lots of white rice and drinks if you're not up to the challenge of spicy food.

An indecisive diner will be pained by Birdcage's extensive and elaborate menu, which contains several pages of curries, soups, noodle and rice dishes, as well as the expected meat, seafood and chicken dishes. Flavours and textures are blended, so there are many dishes that combine curry with fruit like pineapple or fish with banana leaves. Expect your palate to be shocked by the flavour combination. Again; this flavour combination isn't your average Asian dish of pineapple and seafood; it's far more complex and layered than that.

We were confronted with this reality when a complimentary amuse bouche arrived. The tiny saucer plate of rice krispies, peanuts and salad sauce with chilli and sugar burnt a very nice roof in this reviewer's mouth when a large spoonful was happily swallowed. This reviewer washed down the burning with a complimentary shot glass of hibiscus juice mixed with ginger.

Appetisers range between 45LE and 105LE and include standard options like spring rolls, and other less standard dishes like crab cakes and deep marinated shrimp. Soups include the typical Thai soup of chicken with lemongrass and coconut milk, but we opted for the sweet corn soup (40LE) with shredded crab meat for a change. The soup arrived steaming hot, noticeably fresh and had a very delicate flavour to it thanks to the freshly shredded crab meat.

Our other appetiser of bamboo salad with grilled duck (55LE) arrived in a large soup bowl that was drenched in the salad sauce. Even though we'd asked for the dish to be prepared mild, we realised just how much we'd underestimated the restaurant's concept of mild. So hot was the spicing on this salad that we could hardly tell if we were chewing meat or duck, and if we had bamboo or cucumber in the salad. This reviewer was definitely not hardcore enough.

For our main courses, the sea scallops in red curry (115LE) were both prettily arranged and nicely delicate in flavour, and our waiter served us complimentary bowls of white rice to lap up the red curry sauce with. The chicken in green curry (65LE) was offensively hot for a supposedly mild dish, but the explosion of flavours brought tears of pleasure (and pain) to this reviewer's eye.

Our order of Pad Thai noodles with shrimp (75LE) fared much better. The dish arrived with a side platter of chilli flakes, sugar and crumbled peanuts for the topping. The dish was thankfully fresh and subtly flavoured  – it's hard to find a decent Pad Thai inCairo– and it passed the next-day-leftover test when it tasted just as great when reheated.

After the massive meal and the copious amounts of lemon juice (22LE) and water consumed, it was impossible to order dessert; even though their menu of fruit dishes and assorted puddings seemed tempting.

If you like Thai food and you like it spicy, Birdcage is a great option as a high-end restaurant that will impress your date as well as your business partner.