If you leave Petaling Jaya at 8 am on a weekday, you can be eating Seremban beef noodles by about 9.30 and be home for a late lunch with a box of siew pau on the back seat. Seremban food is the reason most people make this drive: the Negeri Sembilan capital is about 60 km south of KL, roughly 45 minutes to an hour on the North–South Expressway, which makes it the shortest proper food trip from the city.
The drive down
Take the North–South Expressway south and leave at exit 218, signposted Seremban, for the town centre. If you live on the Kajang or Cheras side, the LEKAS highway runs from Kajang to the eastern edge of Seremban and can be quicker. Both are tolled.
Going is easy; coming back is where time goes, because the expressway into KL fills up from late afternoon. Our guide to the best times to drive in KL traffic explains the patterns.
What to eat, in the order to eat it
- Beef noodles, for breakfast. Seremban's beef noodles are flat rice noodles with a thick, dark beef gravy, topped with peanuts, pickled vegetables, sesame seeds and spring onion, with a sharp vinegar chilli sauce on the side. The meat can be brisket, tendon, beef balls and offal. The well-known stalls are on the first floor of Pasar Besar Seremban, the central market, and they work a breakfast-to-lunch day. Some close on one or two weekdays, so check your stall's days before you drive.
- Siew pau, to take away. This is Seremban's own bun: baked rather than steamed, with a barbecued meat filling. The traditional filling is pork; halal chicken versions are made too. Buy them warm and buy more than you think.
- Masak lemak cili api, for lunch. Negeri Sembilan's signature dish is fish or meat cooked in a turmeric-yellow coconut gravy with plenty of cili padi. It's hot. Order it with rice and something cooling to drink.
Three stops is a full morning. Between lunch and the drive home, walk it off at the Seremban Lake Gardens, one of the oldest lake gardens in the country, or look at the buffalo-horn roofs on the State Museum, which come from the Minangkabau building style the state is known for.
When to go
Weekday mornings. The beef noodle stalls are a morning thing, Lake Gardens is busiest on weekends and public holidays, and you avoid the Sunday evening traffic back into KL. If you only have a weekend, go early on Saturday and be home before the afternoon.
Seremban also pairs well with the coast. Port Dickson is only 30 to 40 km further on, so a noodle breakfast and an afternoon on the beach is one day out. For a longer run south with the same idea, our KL to Melaka day trip plan does it hour by hour.
A car for a market town, and the kilometres
Seremban town is a place for a car that's easy to park near a market. The Mercedes-Benz A35 AMG, a compact sedan at RM 2,200 a day, is quick on the expressway and small enough for a tight market car park. The Honda Civic RS costs RM 800 a day and does the same run for less.
The round trip from Petaling Jaya comes to about 130 to 140 km once you've driven between the market, a lunch spot and the Lake Gardens. That's over the 120 km included with every Grandpride rental, so add 50 km a day, which gives you 170 km. Adding Port Dickson takes you past that, and +100 km a day is the safer choice. Only the named renter drives, so for a group where everyone wants to eat and nobody wants to drive, book a chauffeur instead: a Toyota Vellfire with chauffeur costs RM 150 an hour, with a three-hour minimum, and a Seremban morning fits in five or six hours. Our guide to one-day car rental in Kuala Lumpur explains how a single-day self-drive booking works.
Siew pau keeps for the drive home. Beef noodles don't, so eat those there.
