THERE IS NO dumpling without dough, that universal element of human foodways. Depending on the type and treatment of its ingredients, dough can be silky or flaky, elastic or crumbly, pillowy or crisp. Whatever the texture, a proper dumpling paste is both delicious in its own right and a functional vehicle for filling. For the chef Joe Ng, however, it is something greater. At his restaurant RedFarm, in New York’s West Village, which he opened with the restaurateur Ed Schoenfeld in 2011, Ng has become known for his inventive takes on traditional Cantonese-style dim sum: some modeled to resemble swimming stingrays, others with candy-colored skins and beady black-sesame-seed eyes that mimic Pac-Man ghosts.

These are foods for the Instagram age, and so the chef has grown accustomed to diners memorializing the contents of every bamboo steamer basket. “The telephone eats first now,” he says with a sigh. But filters and hashtags are not Ng’s primary concern — one senses he is most comfortable creating. And indeed, Ng has found an even more imaginative (if less edible) use for dumpling dough: In his spare time, when he’s away from the sensorium-busting clamor of a commercial kitchen, he sculpts tableaus depicting everyday scenes from traditional Chinese life. There are bustling markets, vibrant fruit trees and children waving flags for Chinese New Year — the scenes are like something from the mind of Pieter Bruegel the Elder if Pieter Bruegel the Elder had lived in Song dynasty China. Every baby and tree branch and bundle of bok choy is made out of a mixture of high-gluten flour, rice flour, water and salt. It is, after all, the material Ng knows best.

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Born in Hong Kong, Ng moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn, with his family when he was 14. Today, he’s considered by his peers one of the best Chinese chefs in the West, and he and Schoenfeld have expanded to London with a new RedFarm that opened in Covent Garden last year (there’s also a location on Manhattan’s Upper West Side). A skilled dim sum chef can fashion a crimped and milky har gow specimen with his eyes closed. Ng quips that he does one better: “I can make dumplings when I’m sleeping.”