DATE: Monday, June 16, 1997                 TAG: 9706160034

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: George Tucker 

                                            LENGTH:   87 lines

DOC TWIFORD A TERRIFIC RESTAURATEUR, LONG GONE

It wasn't much to look at, just a small, nondescript, white-painted brick building on lower Monticello Avenue with a gigantic crimson lobster painted on its upper northern side. Once you stepped over its threshold, however, it didn't take long to realize that you were a privileged guest in Norfolk's finest downtown seafood restaurant.

In case you haven't guessed the name already, I'm referring to Doc's, operated by Doc Taylor Twiford from 1940 until 1975, when the building it occupied and other adjoining structures were demolished by the wrecking balls of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority to make way for the present Federal Building. Between those dates, Doc's was the mecca for local as well as gastronomically minded visiting firemen for seafood cookery at its finest.

Doc - yes, that was his real first name - was born in East Lake, N.C., in 1910, when he was delivered by a local physician familiarly known as ``Doc'' Taylor, both of these monikers winding up as Doc Twiford's legal given names.

Coming to Norfolk in 1930, Doc opened his first restaurant at Park and Brambleton avenues during the Great Depression. Ten years later, when the Monticello Avenue building, formerly occupied by a restaurant known as Sterling and Mason Brothers, became available, Doc moved downtown. Once the word got around that the most succulent seafood in the city was available at his somewhat cramped quarters, his reputation was made.

Doc didn't go in for la-di-da decoration. Black and white linoleum tiles covered the small floor space on which six tables and bentwood chairs were crowded. Abutting these was a long counter lined with wobbly, red leather-topped stools. And that was it as far as eating accommodations and decor were concerned.

Even so, I still recall a few frills. For instance, the early vintage elevated television behind the counter was equipped with a sign that read: ``If you're enjoying color television, you've had one too many. This is a black and white set.''

There were also rows of large glass jars containing oyster crackers, an occasional bunch of fresh flowers in a beer mug next to the cash register as well as several framed photographs of pleased former patrons. Notable among these was one Arthur Fiedler, conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a regular patron of Doc's when he was in town, on which the maestro had scrawled, ``A great place to eat!''

Presiding over the establishment was Doc himself, a bespectacled, bearlike but gently spoken man, whose deftness at shucking oysters was legendary. Grasping an unopened bivalve in his black rubber-gloved left hand, Doc would insert a knife between its upper and lower shells and in a matter of moments another oyster on the half shell had joined its fellows on a circular, tin tray to be taken to an awaiting, drooling epicure.

But raw oysters were just the prelude to Doc's other specialties. His thick and creamy clam chowder was soul-satisfying, while his old-fashioned Southern boiled dinners of country ham, cabbage, Irish potatoes and corn bread were equally famous.

Doc's menu also included luscious steaks, shad roe and bacon in season, baked and fried fish, and lobster with melted butter on the side. But these items usually played second fiddle to his specialty: Norfolk Style Hot Crab, a dish he proudly announced that ``people come from all over to eat.''

Doc politely refused to reveal his recipe for this specialty for years, but just before he shut up shop he showed me how to prepare it. These are his exact words for an individual serving:

``Melt a piece of butter the size of a hen's egg in a skillet. When it is hotter than the hinges of hell, dump in half a pound of the best backfin crab meat. Then add salt and cayenne pepper and a dash each of Worcestershire sauce and cooking sherry for taste. Mix it carefully to avoid breaking up the crab lumps. And when it is sizzling, serve it up.''

Doc, who died in 1981 at the age of 70, was the kind of man who generates legends. Others who still recall him fondly will have their own stories, but the following - which indicates the even temper and innate fairness of the man - is my favorite.

A few years after Doc opened his Monticello Avenue place, he employed a man named Snow to shuck oysters. One day Snow was preparing an order for a customer and discovered a large pearl nestled beside the bivalve he had just opened.

As Doc recalled it, the flawless pearl was the size of a small marble. When Snow showed his employer his find, which he reputedly sold later for $1,700, Doc merely congratulated him and went about his business.

Later, when Doc was sharing the story with a patron, the latter asked, `Why didn't you take the pearl? After all, it was your oyster.''

Adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses, Doc smiled and then drawled, ``Why, that never crossed my mind.'' ILLUSTRATION: Virginian-Pilot file photo

Doc Twiford was famous for his oyster-shucking skills at his

Monticello Avenue restaurant. The eatery was razed for the new

Federal Building.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu