Malleshwaram is one of Bangalore's oldest residential neighbourhoods, established in the 1890s as a planned extension of the city. It has a strong traditional Brahmin character — good Udupi restaurants, old temples, the Sampige Road vegetable and flower market, and the kind of domestic architecture that has almost entirely disappeared from central Bangalore. The 18th Cross area is known for its morning coffee, and the filter coffee here is as good as it gets in the city.
The neighbourhood around the Kadu Malleshwara temple, which gives the area its name, has a quiet traditional character on weekday mornings. Malleshwaram Circle has more life: street food vendors, the market, auto-rickshaws, and the comfortable ordinariness of a neighbourhood that has been doing the same things for a long time. It is a good place to come if you want to understand the older Bangalore rather than the newer one.