Also, care to explain some of the DISadvantages of using node for APIs?

So, the biggest thing that can't be worked around is that the number type in Javascript doesn't support arbitrary-length integers. That means that you can't blindly trust numeric IDs for resources (though it'll take you a while to hit them)--instead, you'll have to do things like specify string versions of those id's. Twitter ran into this, I believe, and it's something to be aware of.

The other disadvantage of using Node is that the ecosystem is still not completely agreed on what to use--for my 0.02USD, I'd look into HAPI + Swagger.

Also, if you don't know about promises or generators, you're going to write really really ugly Node code. That said, it's pretty easy to pick up.

understanding asynchronous coding in JavaScript - e.g. callback hell, flow control, it's the tradeoff to efficient and scalable processing

having never used node, could you point me to a good tutorial/guide on using the two in tandem?

Might want to poke around here for tutorials geared at devs coming from other languages: https://strongloop.com/node-js/node-js-get-started-java-php-...