darko,
This
http://www.flickr.com/photos/filmnut/179496514/ is a stand alone meal over here, consumed as a breakfast or a lunch more often than dinner.
Sometimes it is served with tom yam soup or papaya salad, but it is not served with green curry or basil pork. Those dishes are served with jasmine white rice.
So, fried rice (which I will define as white rice fried in a pan with oil and seasoning and a small amount of meat) is considered a stand alone meal.
Regular white rice is not a stand alone meal and it is eaten with a curry or a meat.
Im not sure what you guys are being served over there, but most of the Chinese/Thai restaurants Ive been to in the USA serve fried rice instead of white rice, so it was Chicken Cashew with fried rice unless you specifically requested white rice. So... in the USA it does seem that fried rice is not considered a stand alone meal.