Last week, folks in Detroit got their first taste of Five Guys, the Lorton-based burger-and-fries chain that we love to bash around here for not being all that anymore. Maybe this says something about us, and maybe this says something about Detroit, where a greasy burger may indeed be a gourmet meal these days, but the Free Press restaurant critic Sylvia Rector couldn’t have been happier with her Five Guys meal:

You can’t order a burger medium or rare; they’re served only well-done. Still, they are juicy and very flavorful, in part because they and the fries are cooked to be served immediately.

Five Guys is one of the chains that has helped spawn the national trend toward fresh, higher-quality ingredients cooked to order and served in a fast-food setting. The concept is being widely copied all over the country, but this chain has honed it to a science. Its food is, indeed, vastly better than its fast-food setting suggests.