Yuen: Weeks into dating ‘Love is Blind’ alum, chef Yia Vang knew she was the one

The server at Estelle in St. Paul had just brought over some complimentary cheese curds when Amanda Burke skipped the small talk and started to interrogate her new suitor. It was their very first date, and Burke launched into her “dealbreaker” questions:

No. 1: Have you ever cheated on someone?

No. 2: How many times have you been in love?

Her date, whom she met online, was none other than Hmong American celebrity chef Yia Vang. And he was sweating bullets.

“They literally just gifted us some cheese curds, and we haven’t even gotten to the apps yet,” Vang recalled. “I was like, ‘I don’t know where the night goes from here.’ ”

Thankfully, Vang’s responses signaled nothing but green-flag energy. He answered “no” to the cheating question. And he said he’d been in love a total of three times.

Now, make that four. And this time, he is floored.

Why was Burke, a former contestant on the Minneapolis season of “Love is Blind,” so keen to learn about Vang’s romantic history?

“I don’t date cheaters,” she said. And if someone hasn’t been in love by the time they’re 40, she believes, they lack “emotional maturity.”

Both Vang, 41, and Burke, 44, say at their age, there’s no time to waste, no sense in sticking it out with someone incompatible and no mental energy for the chess games of young courtship. Finding someone in middle age is sometimes about disrupting your rhythm and flow to build a new drumbeat together, Vang said.

“It’s not like we’re in our 20s anymore,” he said. “We love what we do, we’ve made some mistakes and we’ve been heartbroken many times.”

“This is what dating in your 40s is like,” Burke said.

Just six months earlier, he had opened Vinai, then hailed by critics that it was one of the most anticipated restaurants in the country. Accustomed to the grind of restaurant work, Vang was OK with being romantically alone.

“I had a great system,” said Vang, whose nights after getting home from the restaurant typically involved Taco Bell, “SportsCenter” and a mixed drink before dozing off. For her part, Burke prided herself on being an “independent girlie.”

They soon realized they shared a devotion to family, friends and faith. Burke had long soured on men who couldn’t communicate. In Vang, the outgoing host of TPT’s award-winning show “Relish,” she found an emotionally honest, creative and often gregarious storyteller. He was not stingy with affirmation: “I like you,” he told her, repeatedly.

Her beagles, Charlie and Walter, have required some warming up to, though. Vang refers to them as “her dogs,” not theirs, saying they’re not the most well-behaved. In their downtown Minneapolis apartment, Charlie can’t stop kissing Vang’s hand, causing the chef to roll his eyes. “But she loves them to death, so I guess I have to love them, too.”

Dog ownership is part of the grand compromise.

Early into the courtship, Burke, a district manager for American Eagle stores, confessed a secret. “I’m on a reality game show that’s on a big streaming network,” she told Vang.

Vang knew it could only be “Love is Blind,” the absurdly premised but addictive dating show where couples get engaged, sight unseen. Burke, then 42, was the show’s oldest contestant. She didn’t form deep connections with any of the men, who she surmises were turned off by her age. Producers focused on other storylines, and she estimates she received less than 20 seconds of airtime for the entire season.

Vang bristles at the idea that love could be truly blind. He suggests a more accurate title: “Love’s Got Glaucoma.” That’s because, he believes, we all know to some extent what we’re looking for.

“Sometimes it’s not clear and a little hazy, but when you meet your person, things clear up a little bit,” he said.

Burke agrees. A devotee of F45 Training gym’s fitness workouts, she told him, “Babe, you’re not hot. You’re handsome,” bursting into laughter.

Burke was born in Korea and adopted to white parents in Rochester, where she grew up. She may look Asian from the outside, Vang said, “but on the inside, there’s a white girl named Becky from Rochester.” She can’t handle spicy food. And last Christmas, Burke dragged Vang, along with the pups, to take pictures with Santa.

On a trip to New York to celebrate her birthday in January, the only thing Burke expressly requested was a handwritten card. She was disappointed Vang didn’t have one to give her. As they walked by Bethesda Fountain in Central Park, a friend dressed incognito like a weird tourist was waiting for them with a telephoto lens.

Vang bent down on one knee and pulled out a 3.48-carat oval ring — and a handwritten card. They plan to marry next year.

“He doesn’t have any red or yellow flags,” said Burke, who, despite her fiancé’s objections, is proud of her first-date vetting process. “It can work, honey. It can.”