OP is most correct. Here's the favourite recipe to serve 5 or 6 Thai boys in my small room. Barbeque 1 Friendship inexpensive steak and 2 pork steaks. (Best to marinate them 6 hours) If short of time or too hot I fry them up in the wok. One large potato baked in the microwave. One or two large carrots. The baked potato and carrots are sliced up and lightly fried in the wok.
To serve I put the meat on a wooden cutting board with two steak knives set on my small coffee table. The potato/carrot wok is placed on the table. HP sauce and ketchup is a must. Also a couple of bags of cooked rice from the local cart. (Thai boys never feel they've really eaten unless they have some rice.) We all sit around the table, each with a fork, and dig in. Someone cuts of pieces of steak which we share. We stab bits of potato and carrots from the wok. It's a huge success and no plates to wash.
The leftover rice is put in a bowl with a beaten egg, brown sugar and cinnamin and cooked up in the microwave for desert.
This is one of my best "sanook" moments.
The picture show my chicken fried rice but you get the idea.
Sorry. The above photo shows the Mama noodles supreme. Cook up some cups of noodles and add to the wok with cooked chicken and any vegies in the fridge. The boys can make it. Cheap!!
The picture below shows the boys making their breakfast of fried egg on burnt bread. (we call it toast) Like Denny's, breakfast for Thais is any time of day or night.
Thanks Doug.
At last someone who grasps the simple, inexpensive but priceless treasure of eating with nice Thai boys.
Some of the responses to what I think is normal living are weird to say the least.
But mai pen rai.