I've never seen Ratatouille (please be nice to me) so I might be off base on this interpretation but I like the detail here of him dropping his pen on the floor, as if in that moment he was no longer a critic but just a human enjoying a human experience for the first time in ages
There's a great bit in Jurassic Park at the velociraptor dig site where the guy behind the computer is so excited about the fossil-scanning tech he says that "A few more years development and we won't even have to dig anymore" and Alan Grant replies "where's the fun in that?"