For the sake of offering an answer:
$http.get('http://api.host.com/host');
is why you are getting a CORS/xhr exception. Because that domain is different than that of your angular app, your browser is treating it as a CORS request. You have 2 choices- handle the CORS request on your server, or set the domains the same and remove the CORS problem. If you choose option 1, look at setting CORS response headers that allow your request. If you choose option 2 (make requests to localhost:<urPort>), the code you have should work correctly.
I answered this question where I went into more detail about how CORS works/how the browser handles a CORS request.