Hi Jason, I am not sure where you can find the fresh cheese, but I know a few high priced Italian specialty stores in my area that don't move their product that fast. It is all up to the ordering practices of the establishment, and just because you are paying top dollar does not mean that your cheese is fresh! Pizzerias have the advantage here, as I have found that all the wholesalers in my area that will sell me fresh cheese (I buy in bulk for parties sometimes) get it and sell it within a few days of manufacture. I also have one Italian specialty store in my area that moves a lot of product, and gets buffalo mozzarella (from around Naples), and cows milk (Grande from Wisconsin) in twice a week. The oldest it can be when I buy it is a week max from manufacture.
I know I am very lucky to have this situation. People in New York are even more lucky, they have stores that sell cheese so fresh you can buy it when it is still warm from manufacture! I am sorry if I came off as a jerk, but I just wanted to try to help clear up the bad reputation fresh cheese has gotten here on the forum. Believe me, you are not the first person to come on here and say that they made bland watery pies with fresh cheese.
If you do happen to find cheese in clear water, that is firm and bounces back to its original shape after being squeezed and doesn't have any shreds coming off, it should be fairly dry. There are some bland tasting brands out there, just like any other cheese, so try everything you can find to get the best flavored cheese. Just because it is expensive, or fresh does not mean that it will be a flavorful brand. I am actually embarrassed to admit this, but unfortunately for my wife and my free time I do drive around to multiple places scoping out the ingredients for my pies. I usually have to try a few stores to find decent tomatoes, which for me are even harder to locate than good mozzarella. Also, my favorite sausage is not the place with the best pepperoni, or the place with the best produce or cheese. I would never expect anyone else to be as big of a pizzafreak as me, though.
At the NY pizza show I was fortunate to attend a really fun seminar hosted by the owner of Lombardi's pizza. One of the audience members asked him how he dealt with his mozzarella if it was too wet. He said that the first thing he would do is talk to his cheese maker and tell them to get their S**T together. If that didn't work, he thought the best way to deal with the problem was to hang the cheese up in the cooler with some cheese cloth and allow it to dry.
If my cheese is too wet I use a different method. First I slice the cheese (since grating fresh mozzarella is impossible). I then lay the cheese out on a stack of paper towels, usually about four thick. I put another stack of paper towels on top, and wait about five minutes. I flip my stack over and wait another five. Sometimes this is enough. Sometimes It is not even needed. Sometimes I repeat this process with fresh paper towels a few times. If both sides of your paper towels have soaked through in the 10 minutes, you are going to have to do this again. Once the cheese is dry I sprinkle a decent amount of sea salt, or real salt evenly across the cheese. This type of salt not only tastes better, but is better for you. Normal table salt has had all the trace minerals removed. The minerals are then replaced with chemicals to keep the salt from clumping. The removed minerals not only provide flavor, but are also good for you.
In a professional pizzeria they would never do this, but I also sometimes put the sliced/dried/salted cheese in a plastic container with a lid and add some olive oil. I then shake up the cheese to evenly distribute the salt and oil around all sides of the cheese. This makes for an especially yummy pie, and for some reason seems to taste better than if I just sprinkle olive oil on top of the pizza before baking.
