Angular-CLI: unable to display API response : Hey Stackoverflow Angular guys, it's me again ;-)

So, my API is getting a json response (hooray!). Now, I'm trying to just display it however possible in one of my components just to understand and observe how the data is being transferred and displayed, so I can build over it later.

For some reason, I cannot get anything to show, even though my component is working (I keep some other stuff in it to keep track of it showing or not).

Any suggestion what am I doing wrong or how to try to get it working? I've ran out of ideas and my internet search has been highly unfruitful.

contact.service.ts

    import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
    import { Http, Response } from '@angular/Http';
    import { Observable } from 'rxjs/Observable';
    import { map } from "rxjs/operator/map";
    import { environment } from '../environments/environment';
    import { IContact } from './icontact';
    import './rxjs-operators';
    
    const API_URL = environment.apiUrl;
  
    @Injectable()
    export class ContactService {
    
        constructor(private http: Http) { }

        public getContacts(): Observable<IContact[]> {
            return this.http.get(API_URL)
                .map(response => <IContact[]>response.json());
        }
    }

contact.component.ts

    import { Component, OnInit } from '@angular/core';
    import { ContactService } from '../contact.service';
    import { Http, Response } from '@angular/Http';
    import { IContact } from '../icontact';
        
    @Component({
        selector: 'app-contact',
        templateUrl: './contact.component.html',
        styleUrls: ['./contact.component.css'],
        providers: [ContactService]
    })
    
    export class ContactComponent implements OnInit {
    
        private contactlist: IContact[];
    
        constructor(private contactService: ContactService) {
        }
    
        public ngOnInit() {
            this.contactService.getContacts().subscribe(
                (contacts) => { this.contactlist = contacts; },
                (error) => { console.log(error); }
            );
      }
    }
    
contact.component.html - if I get it right, below template should be able to display stuff from my API but it comes back empty.

    <div *ngFor="let contact of contacts">
    {{contact}}
    </div>